front yard landscaping

We did it.  We finished the entire front flower bed plantings in one weekend.  1.5 days to be exact.

I'll be honest.  It took a lot of sweat equity to get this operation complete.  And we are not gardening experts  so it was a little bit of "fly by the seat of your pants" and "take the knowledge that dad gave you" type of thing.  And, David has an interesting ability to just know how to get things done.  Have I mentioned he's amazing?

Either way, we finished.  David did the post-hole digging for each plant and I planted and fertilized right behind him, then we mulched.  {Mulch is rule #1 in gardening 101}.  You need mulch to protect against weeds and keep the moisture in. My hamstrings are killing me.   He has blisters on his hands.  All in a days work.


We started at 8am prepping the soil.  David's dad has every tool known to man a gas powered tiller.  It mixes up the dirt and stuff.  It helps.  Our soil seemed pretty good.  Not too dry, really what do we know?  Seemed good to us, so we decided not to add any soil...  Just another step and more time.  

Then we went to The Great Outdoors which was amazing.  A young kid, Taylor, helped us find everything on our list.  (Prepared by me, in excel from the plans that Catherine made for us. Just call me Type A.) Everything we planted is native Texas, they can endure and actually love the sun.  And, we're pretty lucky in that the 100+ trees we have on our lot provide a lot of shade help.

Not everything on the list suited our fancy.  In particular, we opted to not buy as many "japanese yew" plants or "columbine", but substituted with other items that we liked a lot.  It ended up working out really well, and improvise is key to any plan, right?  We walked out of there for a decent price, what we expected, and it was only 11:00 am.

We laid out everything according to the plan, and started digging, planting, fertilizing, and watering.  Its pretty simple, but multiply that by about 100 plants and it gets overwhelming.  But we finished about 2/3 of the planting by 5:30 pm on Saturday, and hit the showers for a fancy shindig at the Four Seasons.  

{Shout out to Kathryn and Rick Ary on their beautiful nuptials last night.  It was such a fun night and Kathryn was so beautiful and the smile on Rick's face! priceless. }

We woke up nursing "the beverly flu"/hangover (thats another post), popped some advil and hydrated and got right back to work on the remaining 1/3 of planting.  

Here is the final product.  We are pretty proud of ourselves and the value that we added to our house.  And, have I mentioned that its scary how well David and I work together?  Go here for the BEFORE.

Dolly in the grass. {they love their home} and it makes me so happy.

All in all, life is good.  We are done with house stuff for at least a year ;)  But of course we've got some ideas in our back pocket.  They include:

- painting the brick

- back yard deck/arbor/built-in grilling station

- back yard landscaping

- pool.  just kidding  (there's no room in our backyard because our septic tank holds all the real estate.)

I'd love to hear what everyone else has been doing to their house/home to ring in Spring/Summer!

we've been busy, doing other stuff

We've been busy lately, with our lives, and not projects.  Unfortunately.

However, we have been doing a little planning.  Of the garden variety.

My best friend Morgan (I'll have to do a post about us/her, its a story.) has an aunt, Catherine Dunne, (catherinedunne@att.net) who is a landscape designer. (That whole family is creativity grand central station.)  And we had her come and give us her opinion on what to do with out front yard and that space in the back that is a blank blah expanse.

See the before's...

Back of house.  Barron wasteland.

Front of house left.  That is all cut down now and another wasteland.

Front of house right.  All cut down and ready for help!

I am so excited to say that little by little we will be planting an entire landscaping menagerie of items this summer.  Its going to be brutal, its going to be a lot of work, and a lot of water, but we are up for the challenge.  Our water bill currently sits at about $12 a month, so we can handle a little uptick in that to support some curb appeal.

Here is Catherine's design she delivered to us a couple of weeks ago.  A fully developed plan relating to our house, sidewalk, driveway and gate to backyard.  

And she gives detailed names of what to plant, and the size, and the plan shows the quantity.

All in all, this was totally worth the investment we made in paying her for her services.  As some may know my dad is a connoisseur of all things outdoors and garden.  But he's really only into his own yard/garden, and not others.  Even if others means his dearly beloved daughter and son and law.  And, anyway, we don't really have the same taste.  He's a little more natural, I'm a little more structured.  

So, there we have it.   I've asked "It's About Thyme" to create a quote for me of all the plants and hopefully we can go pick them up on Saturday morning and make a day of it!  And another day.  Because its going to take all weekend and maybe next.  

Happy gardening!