Yard Improvements: Dirt and Plants

Man...after that super long blog post yesterday, I thought that we were done.  But since it was only 6 o'clock and we had been taking a break for an hour and a half, we decided to head back out there.

To start off with, I will show you a better "Before and After" comparison.

Before:  Monday Morning

After:  Friday Evening  (Please enjoy my creepy shadow)

I have to keep looking at that mess to keep appreciating how wonderful it is to have a flower bed on that side now.

The first thing that Aaron wanted to finish up was the down spout.  He drilled in some screws to make sure that everything held together.

Look at that hottie.  Seriously people!  I'm so happy that I married someone who knows how to do so many things.  It makes fixing up the house a whole lot easier!

I was scared when we started messing with the down spout that it would end up looking cheap, but check it out.

Aaron is so talented!

Now we are going to move onto plants and dirt.

Check out this crappy bush.  Does it shout "Welcome to Our Lovely Home"?

We have no idea what it is but it has been in our yard since we moved in.  We were hoping that it would be awesome but after dropping hundreds of pounds of shingles on it...it came back looking mangy.

Well...that sucker had to go.

Did you like my hot muscles?  Yeah...I know you did.

Don't worry about that guy though, we didn't throw him away.  He got moved to the back yard for a second chance.

A couple years ago we planted a Dwarf Korean Lilac Bush by the stairs.  We decided to get another one and to put them up front because they are pretty beautiful.

We decided to plant the new one on this side so that the bigger one would be on the new side since we had to transplant the bigger one to a new spot anyway.

While I was working on transplanting and planting on the old side, Aaron was hard at work opening up bags of dirt to pour into the flower bed.  The first bag!!

It was filling up quite nicely and fairly quickly too.  My next job was to smooth it out...you know...since I was so good at it with the gravel.

Aaron was taking more breaks this time so you get more pictures of me!  You are so lucky.  I also got to step on that first layer to compact it down.

Finally we got it deep enough at the front for us to plant the lilac bush at the front.

A happy little bush!!  I can't believe that that morning, all that was down there was one row of stones.

When that was planted, I went around and filled in the tiny drip that was created from digging a hole for the stones that was a bit bigger than needed.

Later Aaron threw down seed over here so that we will have grass growing right up to the stone.  We have to keep it pretty!

We were working faster by the end so that we could get the most done that we possibly could.

We planted a Emerald Green Arborvitae on each side of the house.  I wanted these evergreens because we live in Utah and so I want a little green to stay in our yards during the winter.  I also wanted something that would be dense.

Side story about this Emerald Green and why it embarrasses Aaron and makes him mad when he looks at it.  When we finished smoothing down the rocks, I could see that we only had a stone and a half of space left for dirt.  That is 6 inches.  We had wanted 8 whole inches for plants.

I told Aaron and so we put the plants in place to see if they would be deep enough.  All of them were fine EXCEPT for the Emerald Green.  Aaron said that he didn't mind making that side deeper since it was in the back.  I wanted to take rocks out in that area but Aaron said that it would be fine because when we ordered the rocks he "did the math" and the rocks were "only a third of the bed"...even though I could SEE that it was half of the flower bed.

Well, when we went to dig the hole for this guy, Aaron hit the gravel really fast and was so confused.  I told him that there were too  many rocks and he said, "Well, why didn't we take them out?  Why didn't you say something?"

I reminded him of the conversation...then he was mad at himself when we ended up with a pile of dirt trying to cover all the roots.

I'm sure we will think of something but Aaron is pretty irritated.

We also planted a Mugo Pine on the old flower bed...but I didn't take any pictures of them for you.  They are pretty small right now but they are suppose to fill out 5 feet wide and 4 feet high.

 Now all that that side needs are flowers.  You are going to need to wait to see flowers though because for this weekend, we are done...promise.

Aaron went golfing today with his friends though...which makes him a beast because I'm too sore to get out of bed and take a shower.

One more "Before and After"!

Before:  Monday Morning

After: Friday Night

After 2 years, I'm excited to see this project done!  And I can't wait to see what we come up with to decorate for Halloween and Christmas!  We've already started thinking about it...because we have priorities.