Fall Begins

It is the beginning of fall now and I just returned home from my month long trip in York, PA. (More on that later). A week ago when I was travelling home I was under the impression that my courtyard and all my flowers would already be dead. Boy was I ever wrong..

Not only has everything seemed to get more massive but my day lilies are actually blooming for the first time! They are lovely! I had bought these from Lowes earlier in the year, they were in the clearance plant section for $2 each. When I bought them I was convinced they were going to die and here they are all the way into October and blooming!

We even had a nice little crop of green chile to pick when I returned. I cannot wait to eat them!

The front yard is also looking amazing. Everything is still blooming and going strong. I cannot believe how big all of the plants are.

Under the tree looks pretty good, even though some of the plants are definitely starting to die from the cold weather.


While I was gone, Geoff was a sweetheart and finished up the front yard. Now that all the gravel is finish and the stone walkway is in place we realized things look a little bare. We are not sure yet to do about this, so realize there is still room for improvement. It does look a lot better though, thanks Geoff!

What do you think? Does the front yard look bare now or unbalanced? Have any ideas how to remedy this issue?

Courtyard is looking lovely!

This morning while I was watering I decided it was time to take a picture of the courtyard all full grown and pretty!

It still amazes me how far this area has come!

Progress on The Front

Like I said on Friday, we had plans to finish the front yard over the weekend. We didn't exactly finish it but I am proud to say that we did make some great progress. Sunday we worked our butts off. We first removed the old torn weed blocker and as much bark as we could. The rest got racked into a pile toward the front of the yard.

Next, we took all the path way stones and came up with a possible path layout. I also started trimming the sage bushes, notice the one on the left.

Next, we leveled the path area starting closest to the house and laid the weed blocker, gravel and the first of the pathway stones.

We got the pathway about half done. We realized that the stones we had collected were a little too small so three or four did not even get used. Another trip to the ranch is definitely in our future.

We really wanted to get as much done as possible but we ran out of pathway stones, weed blocker and clean gravel. The gravel is coming from the backyard so some it is full of dirt. So we had to stop at around half way. We are so happy we got that much done. We still have the front half of the yard to bag and now we have to sift the gravel in the back but we are getting so close it the finish line. This whole gravel and pathway project has only cost is $10 for the weed blocker. We couldn't be more happy about that.

We plan to get the rest done over the week. Wish us luck!

Happy Friday!

We have a lot planned for this weekend. Trying to get the front yard finished up is a number one priority but we have a bunch of other random projects as well. Hopefully we can get them all done.

Have a great weekend!

Courtyard Happenings

Our courtyard is pretty much finished, there are only a few small details left like rerouting down spouts and installing a drip system. You know boring stuff that only helps it function better. So we still have important things to tackle with the courtyard. We only now have realized just how bad the down spouts are. We knew they all came down into the courtyard, but we never get rain here and it never mattered before. Now that we have beautiful plants filling up the space we see just how big the problem really is. Last week we got a half inch (yes half an inch) of rain and it drowned the courtyard. We had plants completely under water and we had mulch floating from one side of the courtyard to the other.


It was fairly stressful. We had to even put a board over some of the plants because they were getting pummeled by water from one of the down spouts. The rose bush next to the house took a beating, but there wasn't much we could do. So at some point we will be getting to that issue.

The other issue that we realized over the last couple of weeks that needs addressing, is the lack of a drip system to water the plants. Now that we finished planting the courtyard and front area, watering has become a chore. It takes me between 30 and 45 minutes every morning to hand water everything. We have also been watering 2 times a day to help establish all the new plants, so it takes a lot of time out of the day.

Add those to our To Do List.

There are some other exciting and odd things going on in the courtyard. First is that the rose bushes are flowering more vibrant and larger roses. We think this might be due to them finally becoming established but I happen to find it odd. This is the same rose bush and the color seems to be getting darker.

I dont have any problem with this because I happen to love the dark peach color flowers that the bush is now producing.  I am pretty much in love with roses now.

Things have been growing so well in the courtyard.

It's amazing how much these plants have grown in a month. I have decided however, that I am not a fan of foxgloves. It might be too hot here but their flowers don't last long. Those are definitely not making a return to the courtyard.

Front yard continued

For the 4th of July weekend we did a bunch of work on the front yard. We bought a ton of flowers for under the tree with a birthday gift card. Thanks Alta! From far away you can barely see them.

Up close though you get a great view.

You can see in this picture that we still have a lot of work to do under the tree to clean up the branches that had grown from the bottom. We also had not planted the 2 front flowers yet they are still in their pots in this picture.  We are still trying to figure out what we really want in the very middle. I am starting to think that we should just buy 3 more of the tall blue flowers and call it a day. They are agapathus if you are wondering.

Here are the flowers from the walkway side. It looks so lovely and welcoming with so many flowers. We can't wait for them to get bigger.

Geoff and I went to a local nursery and found a ton of fun plants for the yard. The best part was that they were 99 cents a plant. we got our rock garden ground cover plants, and a bunch of plants for our front window area. Here is a shot of part of the rock garden. I haven't taken a wide shot of the finished product yet.

This morning we worked on the front window area. We started and finished it today in a few hours. It was a tough job, we had to remove all the gravel which was mixed with dirt that was about 5 inches deep. Shovel by shovel we removed the mixture and sifted the gravel. Placing the nice clean dirt back into the area which took us around 2 hours. After levelling the area we added garden soil and started placing large rocks and our new plants. It turned out a lot better than I was expecting.

Its hard to tell in these pictures with the shadows but there are alot of plants in this area. We went with a more natural looking planting, with all the rock and randomly placed plants.

I need to get a couple more pictures of the area but its done! We finished all the plant areas of our front yard. Now we just have probably the hardest area left which is everything in front of the tree. We need to remove all of the old bark, lay down a ton of weed guard, gravel and add a flagstone walkway. It's definitely the most time consuming and hard labor project for the front yard.  Hoping we can get it done sooner than later.

Starting on the front yard

We continued our landscaping projects by moving to the front yard. It has been something we have really wanted to tackle since we moved in. Our curb appeal is pretty terrible and we are the house right in the middle of our cul-de-sac, so when you drive down our road you stare at our house the whole way. We started last week by tackling the small project of clearing out a section of flower bed next to the walk way. We decided to make a rock garden and continue the gravel into front yard area. We cleaned out the area and then replaced the weeds with a weed guard, clean gravel and rocks from the ranch to add interest.

We are planning on planting some ground cover plants here to add some interest and color. A couple of days later we created a tree ring with some rocks from the ranch. We wanted to plant flowers under the tree and raise the level of the ground around it so that the roots would actually be covered.

Also cutting out all of the bush at the bottom to make it an actual tree and open up the space some more. Yay for being able to see the house.

There are still large branches at the bottom that need to be sawed off  and we are still cleaning up the base of the tree but its a great start. Just removing the old bark and the random tree branches has been a huge improvement.

Almost done with our courtyard

The courtyard has been slowly coming together over the last few weeks. We started with the section closest to the door and worked our way to the gate. First working on the side next to the house and finishing with the fence side. We have been very lucky with getting plants. We bought a lot of them while they were on sale like getting 20 bulbs for $3 and our family has also given us a fair amount of flowers. 

I am so happy with how the house side has turned out! I debated for a while about what to put here and I am so happy that I went with the vine. It really has added a nice focal point for when you walk in.

We added a few moss rocks that we got from my grandparents ranch. I love them! They really add some character to the courtyard.  There are 2 on the each side, but there will be more tweaking.

We plan on adding one more to the fence side to give a little more balance since its such a long section. Also going to add a large one to the back section for a focal point. We have already picked up a few more rocks from the ranch we just have to figure out where each will go. Hopefully we can get that done this weekend.

Planting our new tree

We planted our new tree in the back yard, but first we had to do some hard labor to get it in the spot that we wanted. Breaking out concrete first because of course we make everything harder than we should.

Garrett came by to give us a hand in digging the giant hole.

Thankfully with his help we were able to get it done fairly quickly and had the tree in its new home.

We cant wait for this tree to get bigger and yes that is still concrete debris from the pool removal. It is really hard to get motivated to move concrete blocks.

But doesn't our tree look lovely even with all that crap behind it?

Our New Tree

On Friday Geoff and I went to Home Depot to kill time before a movie. We decided to check out the garden center to see if they had any good deals and before we even could walk into the building we saw a big sign that read, "Half Off Shade Trees". We walked over to check them out thinking that they would still be $100 which would be a great deal considering they were 10 to 13 feet tall. To our surprise the original price was $63 which meant they were only $31.50.

We have been looking at other shade trees around town at local nurseries and they were $130 and up for the same size. This was just too good a deal to pass up so we bought one.

Progress on the courtyard

We have been working little by little on the outside of our house. The courtyard has been Something we have been wanting to tackle ever since we removed the ivy. It has been a bit of an eyesore for a while now. Leaves accumulating in the back corner and we still have some dead ivy vines poking through the fence. It was pretty ugly.

On a cooler saturday morning I decided it was time to tackle this area. I started by removing all the rock and as many dead ivy vines and roots that I could. Geoff did help me with the heavy lifting.

We bought 2 rose bushes that we got on sale, by one get one free from home depot awhile back and planted them there.

Home depot was having another sale on plants, so we bought 3 foxgloves for $10 and 3 vincas for $10. Also grabbed some mulch to give it that finished feeling.

Later during the week I bought some bulbs for half off and Geoffs parents gave us a bunch of vincas that they didn't have room for. I cleaned out the small section next to the house, with a friends help, and got to planting.Thanks Elliot! I wasn't sure what I wanted to put in the middle of that section so I left it blank until I had some idea.

That Idea turned out to be a 4 foot trellis and a flowering vine, which is a Rosemoor Clematis. I also picked up 2 day lilies for $1 each.

I have to say that I am really happy with my decision to put in the trellis and the clematis it was a nice to add some instant height.   

We still have the fence side of the courtyard to finish but we have run out of steam right now. We are waiting for some good deals on more part shade plants, as well as an idea of what we really want that side to look like. We really love how its turning out and we still have a bunch of tweaks to make. Hopefully we can get to it soon.

The Pool Part 3

On Saturday after a long Friday night of partying we woke up around 9 and tore down our side wall. We had to take this down so we could get access to the backyard. It didn't take long to get this down. At first we thought it was going to be a cinder block wall that was stuccoed but it ended up being a wood wall that was stuccoed so it came down in one piece.

After we took that down we went and grabbed some food. They dropped off the first load of dirt around 12:30 which Geoff ended up moving by himself. Slowly all of our friends started showing up. Within a few hours we had it almost done. Here is where we left Saturday, so much progress!

We also had a bunch of dirt left in our driveway to finish moving. We took 4 days to move the rest of the dirt.

I can say we are officially done filling in the pool! Thanks to our friends and our brothers we got it all done! Woohoo! now that is progress!

Now we need to remove all the cinder block and concrete. We also need to figure out what we are going to do with all of this space!