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Tuesday, October 5, 2010

Yard Update


January 25th
February 27th
March 8th
October 4th

This will be known as the Year We Tore Out Everything And Tried to Re-Build It. My goodness.

See, in the first picture, my husband had just taken away a (leaning) block wall. We were going to spend a Saturday or two digging out the front, back to the OLD boulder wall that a previous owner had buried. Problem was, the boulder wall only came halfway down the driveway, and stopped. Drat. (That's the second picture.)

Enter My Uncle, The Contractor. He soundly rebuked us for attempting to do this with shovels and wheelbarrows, brought in a whole posse of Guys With Trucks, and made short work of pretty much everything. If we're doing the side yard, we might as well take out the driveway while we're at it. Oh, if you'll have the concrete truck here, let's take out the back patio and re-pour that...oh, and make a path along the side....a patio in front...new steps....yeah, we'll take out the front entry steps... it was crazy. BUT, we love it. We love that an average sized person can now walk up the steps to our front door without getting stuck (it was that narrow before), we love the garden space out front, we love the places to sit. The kids eat lunch on the front steps nearly every day.

I love that so many people were willing to come and lend a hand for a project that clearly and quickly spiraled out of anything we could handle on our own, especially since my husband changed from employed to self-employed mid-project right about the same time I discovered myself to be pregnant. His time available to work in the yard dwindled while my energy and agility disappeared entirely, and we couldn't have done this alone.

We're still looking for a load of wood chips to come and mulch around the garden beds, and have plans for more plantings, but all in good time. For now, we have good soil and good sun, and a lot to be thankful for!

Around the patio I've planted wild roses, garlic, day lilies, crocosmia, lung wort, and star lilies. The top of the wall is bordered by a 4-foot-wide garden bed, where I've planted loads of June-bearing strawberries and more clumps of day lilies. I have about 200 daffodil bulbs we rescued from the earth movers, and they'll go in front of the garden boxes, and around the patio up top. We plan on getting blueberry bushes to plant along the right side of the yard, unless our neighbor on the other side decides in the spring he's ready to get going on the blueberry hedge he's wanted in HIS yard for years.

I am massively too late to plant anything in the garden other than radishes, but I have some very slow-growing kale in my backyard garden box I plan to chop down a bit and transplant to the front to see if it will survive. It's so shady in the backyard, it took 3 months for my kale to get 12 inches high, and by that time the slugs and bugs had already eaten feast after feast. It's either transplant or compost now!

Now that everything is in place...call me pig headed, call me naive, but I really think we can manage a spring planting. Even with a Spring baby. We've come so far in this project, PLEASE let us have the presence of mind to steal the time to get a planting in next Spring!
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12 comments:

Elizabeth said...

I love the wooden barrel, planter thingy. It is rustic and terrific. I can't believe all the incredibly hard work you all did. Wow. Whew!

What's going in the cement bordered planters in front?

Strawberries and blueberries grow so well where you are.

It will be fun to see what all you do with your "new" yard.

Anonymous said...

Beautiful yard. I can't believe how different it looks! You guys went crazy! (In a good way.) :)

LunaMoonbeam said...

Lookin' good, lady!

Ticia said...

That's a lot of work. I can't wait to see it with the plants in.

Mama Papaya said...

Wow! Just wow. You guys did great. You are going to love having a sunny (and beautiful!) spot to grow. Fantastic transformation!

Teresa said...

Oh may you have come a long ways...looking good.

Su said...

Fantastic! Love the retaining wall. And I'm glad you kept the weird, I mean, interesting tree stump sculpture thingamajic. Talk about an icebreaker

Alexandra said...

Wow, right off the pages(web) of Curb Appeal(HGTV)! What a blessing to have your uncle come in and finish it off so nicely. You know, I had a lot more time and energy while my baby was very young and sleeping a lot. You just may be able to do it! My energy and time waned, as I'm sure you know very well, when the little ones began walking. I bet your daughters would love to help.

Unknown said...

Wow you got so much done over the summer! My dreams were way more than I was able to accomplish this year. And I have a backyard and garden that needs tending desperately! I have tomato plants still covered in green tomatoes, potatoes that need dug up, some perennials I wanted to transplant..... I'm actually sort of looking forward to winter just because there will be no yard work!

Debbie said...

I would not think most people could manage a spring planting but you - you'll do it! I have do doubts.

Samantha said...

Brave girl! And I've never even heard of half of those plants. ;) I can tell it's going to look awesome, though!

Elizabeth said...

Myrnie - Where are you? You haven't blogged in a week! You must be really busy.

Did you ever visit the Pumpkin Patch with your kiddos?

How are you feeling?