Our Spring Landscaping Project

We've had lots of rain, and the flowers are blooming...bright and colorful! Here are a couple of flowers that we planted in our front flower bed. I can't remember the name for these flowers, but I think they are so pretty!



When we bought our house, the landscaping was pretty much a blank slate. Hardly any grass, weeds and mud everywhere. Slowly but surely we are working on it and improving our curb appeal. I think watching "Curb Appeal" on HGTV has motivated me to be even more interested in landscaping. Last fall we did the completed our huge rock hill (1,200 square feet of rocks) and we planted grass in the back yard. So far this spring we've made a small bed of annual flowers at the mailbox and completed our next big project... you'll have to keep reading to see it! Here are a few things that I've learned about our landscaping experiences: 1) you can get good deals on landscaping supplies including grass seed, small plants, young trees, etc. 2) when you are your own man power, you save tons, but your body hurts worse than ever...but it's totally worth it! 3) you never REALLY know what you're getting yourself into 4) I'll end on a positive note - my husband is one of the hardest workers I have ever seen, I mean, we'll both get out there and work our tails off, but he never ceases to amaze me!


So let's start this exciting journey. Almost two weeks ago (Easter weekend) Brett woke up on Saturday and said "hey, let's landscape that area above the rock hill..." and I said "great! I bet we can do it all in one day!" Oh, we're so optimistic...it's kind of funny looking back on the weekend! When we decided to go look at plants at a local Greenhouse it was approximately 12:30pm. Note, that means that there's 8 hours of sunlight left. So we went to Whitaker Farms. (about 5 miles down the road) One of the staff members told us all about plants that would work well for our area. After spending some time looking at all of the choices, we decided to draw a plan on a scrap piece of paper and run with it. By the time that we got the plants and the trees back to the house it was about 2:3opm.


We decided that it was time to grab lunch since we needed to go to Wal-Mart to get soil. I just love $5 footlongs! Anyway, after lunch, we grabbed edging for the area and 10 bags of soil, and we headed home. So enthusiastic about what was ahead! Here is the before shot...

Task #1 - Use the tiller (and the shovel in some spots) to make sure that all grass is pulled up and then tear up and level the land. To give a little perspective, this area is a little over 40ft. long and at the largest part about 7 ft. wide.

Way to go! We (really meaning Brett) shaped the area in no time! I was a little afraid to run the tiller... good thing he's brave!

Task #2 - Then it was time to place the edging.
Task #3 - Time to dig holes and plant everything! (2 trees, 8 small shrubs, 14 other small bushes) Well, I'd like to show you pictures of what it looked like when we finished that night, but we stopped at 8:30pm and it was completely dark. But when we woke up on Easter morning...look what the Easter Bunny brought us....
Only kidding, but we were so excited to wake up that morning for many reasons, but one of which (obviously not the most important) was to see the beautiful plants! We had no idea what it was actually going to look like.

On Easter Sunday, we went to church where I grew up. I hadn't been there in a long time. It was a great service and you couldn't help but feel the excitement of the celebration of our risen Lord! Then we enjoyed a wonderful homemade meal with my parents. My mom is a wonderful cook! And she gave us leftovers which was REALLY nice of her!

Task #5 - Add mulch as the finishing touch! So, 30 bags of mulch later (well, we did our front flower bed with it too...) so make that 23 bags of mulch later, the area was finished....woohoo!

Task #6 - Sit back and enjoy as you rest your REALLY sore muscles. For the next two days ibuprofen was our best friend! haha But like I said before, it is all well worth it!

Thanks for sharing this journey with us. I know it's not THAT exciting for those of you reading this, but we are excited to share! Anytime you are able to start in on a huge project and then complete it, sit back and enjoy it, you feel such a sense of accomplisment!