Landscaping Our Front Yard

I hinted around last week that we were going to be busy, especially on Friday and Saturday. Well, landscaping was happening at our house, and everything but the mulch was finished on Friday.

But don't let me fool you into thinking that we actually did the landscaping ourselves — we had someone draw up plans a year ago and just now had it done. They have all the professional tools and knowledge, plus they dig around all the wires and cables in the ground.

There was one thing we were able to do ourselves though and it only cost us half as much that way — the mulch. We had it delivered late on Friday and then put it in ourselves on Saturday. It was a much harder and longer job than we expected.

We also had the landscaper leave all the sod he cut out. We used it to patch a couple of places, one that was about 10' x 6'. Then Hubby and the kids (rotating) took the leftover pieces and put them in a strip along the back line of the property. The entire sod project was also a much harder job than I expected, primarily because of how time-consuming it ended up being.

Now for the before and after pictures. I took the before pictures one day a couple of weeks ago when Buddy was mowing the yard. I kind of took them on a whim thinking that I'd get better ones later and then never did. I'm sure glad I did take these!

Here are the after pictures:

It's like a complete transformation in a day. I find myself driving slow in front of it when I'm leaving and coming home just to stare at it. You'll probably never hear me say this again, but I'm almost disappointed it's autumn since the leaves will have to fall off the new trees for the winter.

The kids are a little bummed that there isn't any color right now, but I keep reminding them that it's fall and next year we will see color. It was designed so that we'll have color from spring through fall. Of course all of the shrubs will get larger as well — there are globe yews and dwarf Korean lilacs up against the house. They will be what adds the height in the back. You'll also notice we had burning bushes put around the utility boxes to disguise them some.

Our mulch is a dyed brown earth-friendly mulch that is designed to last two to three years. I'm excited that it will continue to keep most of it's color.

Hubby and I found out we still had muscles in places we forgot after all that hard work the other day. We also decided we were without a doubt getting old.