If you follow my other blog you are aware that my time
lately has been preoccupied with a huge landscaping project. I am literally
starting from scratch after having done a complete demo on my entire front and
back yards in the early spring of 2021. Then
a life altering event changed my
plans last year and the project was put on hold. Once I retired this year my focus was to get
the project back on board and that is exactly what I've done. On May 15th I was able to get started and I'm
so pleased with the progress I've been making.
We are blessed
with three large and lovely trees in our yard that provide us with a lot of
shade. Not so conducive to growing a lawn
however and Lord knows I have tried. No
amount of watering, fertilizing or reseeding seemed to help. Our soil was terrible too and the trees
blocked out the sun and dropped leaves on the ground which choked out what
struggled to grow. We would get a couple
months of green grass in the spring and then it would dry up and start to die
off looking pathetic. I decided to take
it all out and with the help of our chickens they finished up what I could not
last year. With no more weeds or grass
in the yard I started off with a nice clean slate. I had a vision for lots of curving
flowerbeds planted with green shrubs,
flowering shrubs and perennials. Easy to
care for and maintain, low water use and of course it had to be beautiful.
I began the
process by removing all of the black vinyl lawn edging and restructuring the
beds. Instead of the lawn edging I
bordered all of my flowerbeds with rocks we already had in our yard and I also redid
our pond area in the process. I added my
homemade compost from the bin in the back yard and turned the soil
well before raking it out and then planting.
The plants and shrubs seem to love their new home and so far (knock on
wood) everything seems to be doing really well.
We moved our fence because our largest tree was beginning
to push it over. I rebuilt it on the
other side extending our front yard bit and
creating a new flowerbed in the process.
Then I installed
a new lawn. Not just any lawn, but one that will not
require water, fertilizer, weed control or mowing. We absolutely love it!
Our driveway has
an extra
gravel parking area that
runs alongside. The weeds were taking
over and the gravel was a bit thin. It
looked pretty ugly. At the time I
installed this parking area I had limited funds and did the best I could with
what I had to work with. Three
truckloads of
FREE gravel from a
Facebook Marketplace ad and a lot of sweat and elbow grease over three days
transformed this area into exactly what I had always envisioned. I removed the weeds, laid the gravel on thick
and added yet another flowerbed.
The additional flowerbed received eight full five gallon buckets
of compost from the backyard bin and I turned the soil over before raking it
smooth. It is ready for planting a shrub
and some plants I got from Home Depot with a gift card. Once this bed was complete I was able to
begin working on the backyard next to our deck.
There was a nice
sized area surrounding our pear tree and in the past I haven't done much with
it until now. I began by working in a
lot of compost into the soil and I wanted to give it a rock border too, just like
the others. By this time I had run low
on rocks but a Facebook Marketplace ad took care of that for me and I was able
to pick up a load of FREE landscape rocks to keep this project going. This bed is going to be home to some
blueberry bushes and possibly some strawberry plants next spring. I added one shrub at the end of the bed that can
be seen from the front yard, but for now the rest of it will need to wait.
I continued the
flowerbed along the side of our house in the front yard around the corner and
into the back yard next to the deck making it one long meandering bed which
also includes our pond. I even gussied
up the drainage area where the downspout is.
I mean, why not? Then I continued
my way into the backyard by removing the weeds and reinstalling some pavers in
front of the deck steps. Then I was able
to refresh the gravel in that area with what I had left from
the driveway project. The small flowerbed on the other side of the
deck got a refresh as well. Now to
figure out what I want to plant there.
Because
I planted a garden this year the rest
of the back yard will not be finished right away. I have grand plans however for a completely
new garden area and compost bin, but that will need to wait until the current garden
is harvested and I'm able to procure the supplies I need for this part of the
project. I hope you enjoyed this tour of
my home improvement projects. There are
loads of other projects for me to work on, so with that said, I better get back
to work!
It looks amazing, and just incredible that you could do it on a small budget!
ReplyDeleteThanks Brooke!:)
DeleteWhere are your chickies? Is Edith and company no longer around?
ReplyDelete(Yes, this does look really nice.) You have had some tough experiences lately, with your friend's death and your daughter leaving home. Don't push yourself too much, girl... these can really be difficult to deal with.
Oh, my chickies are still very much present and accounted for! Love those ladies. :o)
DeleteLooks lovely! Great job!
ReplyDeleteThank you Kathy. I am having so much fun with this project.
Delete