New flower beds!

Our house was in dire need of some attractive landscaping!  It was in rough shape.  I think the last owners hadn't lived on the property for a while.  So I took it upon myself to do a bit of beautifying.

I wrote this at the beginning of April and didn't get around to posting until now:


Spring is coming and I can feel it.  We just had a burst of warm weather over the weekend and boy, was it great!!

From our last house project, we acquired some bricks that were at least 120 years old--consisting of a fireplace stack we needed to remove because it wasn't well supported in its foundation.  So here they sit:

First thing I did was remove those 3 loose concrete blocks blocking the concrete tub.

Also, I would like to replace the bush in the concrete tub.  With a lilac.  or a rose bush.  or something.  anything else!

I've already used a good many of the bricks to line the flower garden beds I have in mind that I started last fall, but didn't really spend too much time with that just yet.  I will be fixing it up with more finesse later--it was basically a placeholder I put in last fall.

Like here:

I planted 30 tulip bulbs last fall in this bed and I have seen about half of them sprout so far.  I still need to go through and till the soil, removing the weeds.  Here is what I have started so far:

It's been a week or so and I have been able to do a few things around the flower garden beds:

I weeded in the garden bed, fixed some of the bricks, (Gabe) took the bush out of the concrete tub, leveled it out, and I fixed the brickwork to the left of the tub.

Another job I started over the weekend--I wanted to create a lovely flower garden bed where there wasn't one before.  There were patches of daffodils growing up, but no defined space, so I took it upon myself to do just that.

I don't really have a "before" picture.  Except the pics from MRIS when we bought our house.  Eek!!  Well, here is a broad visual of the space being worked on:

The space I'm talking about is on the right of the house in this picture, at the edge of the driveway.

This air condenser has been moved it to another location:

What I did is till the soil, remove all the grass roots, displace the soil and lay down weed block.  I did so cutting around the daffodil patches, leaving them undisturbed.  I used the bricks to define the spaces and create somewhat of a tiered situation.  I covered the cinder block with the brick too, at least from the driveway entry point of view.

So, here is what it looked like after I did some work on it:

for now.

a close up

I still need to get more soil and berm it up to the house better, so it drains water and slopes away from the house.

I also need to add flowers :-)  A trellis for some climbing plants seems like a good idea to prop up against the house on the one side/corner.

These big bushes need to be trimmed back before spring gets underway:

And now:

Another pic from the side--I tilled the soil here too, adding weed block, mulch and a brick edging that can be seen better in this shot:

Gabe and I also cleaned up this large bush in the back yard--there was a ton of poison ivy all around...so now the piles are just laying there.

Gabe got poison ivy from this--a lot!!!  i feel so bad for him.  I didn't get any.


I'll post more pics as more gets done.

Cheers!

and happy happy spring!!!!