Landscaping

Mel and I tackled a couple landscaping tasks today. The first one we worked on was the small garden in the corner of our front yard. Since we moved into this house over three years ago, we have never bothered to plant anything there. There were some flowers there, but we let my mom take them a summer or two ago, because they were a type of flower to which Mel is allergic. In the meantime, the fence that surrounded the two straight edges of the garden had fallen into disarray, and the area had become overrun with weeds. I am certain that the neighbors hated that eyesore. For this area, Mel ripped out all the weeds, the two of us tore down the fence, and then Mel put down some mulch. We will probably end up planting some bulbs this fall, but we haven't yet figured that out.

[caption id="attachment_217" align="aligncenter" width="400" caption="This is the front yard  "garden" before we began work.And here is the after picture.And here is the after picture.And here is the after picture.And here is the after picture."][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_218" align="aligncenter" width="400" caption="And here is the after picture."][/caption]

The second task was taking care of a nice-sized area of the backyard set apart from the rest of the backyard by some small, wooden beams. This area had grass in it when we moved in, but because of the wooden beams, mowing it was difficult. As a result, this area had also become overridden with very tall grass and weeds. A few weeks ago I sprayed the entire area with a heavy-duty weed killer, so today Mel removed the dead grass. Afterwards, I put covered the area with a weed barrier. Finally, Mel and I covered the area with 30 cubic feet of river rock, weighing a total of 1.5 tons. We finished off the area with some garden gnomes and other decor. We will add some more to this area in the future. But for now it is a vast improvement over how this corner of the yard previously looked.

[caption id="attachment_221" align="aligncenter" width="400" caption="Before we began, the back corner of the yard was an out-of-control mess of weeds and grass.The area is now much improved.The area is now much improved.The area is now much improved."][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_222" align="aligncenter" width="400" caption="The area is now much improved."][/caption]