Yard Love

While we were on vacation in London our yard went on a growing spree. The weeds made the most progress but the grass in the back yard was finally looking great (after we put the sod down, half of it proceeded to die, but we've worked hard to being it back to life and it's finally working). The rest of the yard needed some love. When I went to tackle the weeds in the front garden, I realized we hadn't touched any of the plants here since we moved in.

They were a bit out of control and I had no idea how I was going to get the weeds and leaves and who knows what else out of them. After a momentary panic attack, I knew I had to dig everything up, split the overgrown border grasses, and replant. So I did just that. 

The border grass plants were so big and heavy! They were so big that I split each one into four new plants with a hatchet! Four!! I also took out this plant with the red leaves out because it was directly in front of a hibiscus and moved it to the backyard. 

With everything out, I replanted the smaller border grasses (after weeding and raking the leaves out). 

I also rearranged some plants by the door to look a little more purposeful. It is so much more enjoyable to pull in the driveway and see a maintained flower bed instead of a neglected one!

This took me three 1.2 - 2 hour sessions, but it was worth it!

We also had one more leftover totally neglected spot in the back yard which consisted of a bunch of mother in law tongue along the back fence that had been taken over by various vines and weeds. 

Ack look at that!

No, I'm serious...LOOK AT THAT!!!! How did I let this go so long?? I look at it on a regular basis and tell myself I need to get it under control. Oh my gosh, are you looking?

This is a little artifact of a gigantic mess of plants that occupied this corner when we moved in. I found some pictures of its original state from our tree trimming post. 

Oh so scary! And awful. And yes, we had a street light in our backyard too. Thankfully it has since been removed.

Back to today, I was working on another blog post in the sunroom and after staring at it for a few hours I had to get rid of that awful mess. It happened to be a beautiful day so I tackled it all in 2.5 - 3 hours.

I had to resort to the same take everything out before cleaning it up method, but its a good way to fix the problem. Part of the 'everything' of course included the classic cinder blocks. There were five of them hiding in the mess.

I wanted to plant the mother in law tongue along the fence again so I saved all those while I threw all the other weeds out (a whole trash can worth and then some!).

I already felt better once everything was out.

The easiest part was replanting! 

I could not believe I waited so long to take care of this little problem area, but I'm so glad I finally got around to it! The yard is really coming along, look at that grass! Maybe it's time to get back to the office!