Remodel Stage 2: Landscaping

Since my last posting, we've managed to clear most rooms of boxes, hung curtains and blinds in most rooms and hung paintings. It was a busy May, getting through the spring quarter at school and getting ourselves settled in after the chaos of the kitchen and bathroom remodel.

But, now that we're free for the summer, it was time to start getting dirty in the yard!

The previous owners practiced the yard maintenance standard of zero upkeep, so as you can see, it's a big mess of green, overgrown everything.

Here are a few pictures showing the before condition of the back yard. It's basically an overgrown blend of plants that are not meant for a small yard, and untamed bushes and spider plants. Pete poses to demonstrate the tool he is about to become very familiar with!

The plants behind him in the top picture are comprised of a pine tree that seems to be growing out and not up, a dense bush of a plant I'm not familiar with, a holly bush and a rose bush.

I had a bit of a hard time taking out the pine tree, it being a tree. But it wasn't working out in its location and there wasn't an obvious place where we could transplant it to. So, chop chop it went, in to the pile.

Here's what we ended up with at the end of the weekend - whew! Besides sore arms, backs and feet, we now have cleared out areas! The back part of the yard, seen here, is especially nice to have open. The plants were encroaching on the driveway, making it hard to get in and out of the driver's side of the car. Now with all those plants cleared, the land looks bigger!

What's left, shown to the left of the picture, is a rose bush. It's pretty mature, so I'm keeping it! I'll attempt to transplant it to another part of the garden. I'm not quite sure how to do that and what my chances of success are, but let's cross our fingers and hope for the best!

This shot shows the side planter where the spider plants took over. The roots were so entangled with each other than I couldn't salvage any of the irises. We dug everything up, including an, again, overgrown plant that was really not meant to reside in a small yard. Those roots were all tangled up amongst each other too, so much that there was hardly any dirt left between the roots. We'll have to dig it all up and refill it.

Here's our pile of yard waste! The green bin is overflowing and we have at least 4 more loads full just from what we dug up this weekend. We haven't touched the other side of the yard yet!

I dug up a few interesting artifacts, shown here. Strange items kept being unearthed the more I dug, including 2001 New Year's confetti, and these little guys shown here, a garden gnome, a tiny plastic bucket with a chain, and a figurine. It was like Mr. Magoo's magic emporium out there!