Other Minor Exterior Improvements

I wanted to make sure to document some exterior improvements made last summer--now that spring is upon us! And maybe include a few updated progress comparison shots!

I cleaned up the garden beds to the left of the front door, looking out:

This involved re-placing the brick edging (remember the 1890's leftover fireplace brick? yeah, that), replacing weed block and mulching. There are two hydrangea shrubs here, a new boxwood, a tall emerald Arbor Vitae, and some spray rose bushes. We also re-seeded the lawn because it didn't seed well the fall before when we removed the large boxwoods.

I re-located these yucca from under the Rose of Sharon to a new location near the entrance of the driveway. It is too crowded there and I think it will do better here!

There is an un-identified shrub that we have next to it to the right, that is doing really well. It is one that we got from Gabe's work for Arbor Day a year ago. It *might* be a dogwood.

See? It's doing so well! Except that I took this shot right before the deer got to it...grr

Took this shot mid June 2020

And another with a little cumquat:

In the background you can see a redbud tree doing well, and a pine tree in the farthest sight.

A few other beauties around the yard, blooming in June,

My peonies, in an unfinished garden bed in the front:

Beautiful climbing roses blooming next to the deck in the back:

I haven't quite had success getting them to climb, yet. As opposed to the climbing rose on the other side of the deck I've had since 2017 that has done quite well in the climbing/blooming department!

Here's a slightly different angle of the front garden bed shared earlier, with the hydrangeas about to bloom and the spray roses blooming:

Hydrangeas in the front left garden bed, going crazy awesome:

They started out like this in 2015!

Day-lilies, running out of room, growing up in-between our viburnum and evergreen:

Here is our garden and chicken coop/run combo:

A close up of the watermelons getting started in there:

Progress on how the front garden beds are doing, at the beginning of July:

Do you spy the elephant ears getting their start?

And now, the front facade, in the middle of September, elephant ears in all their glory (and swallowing up the juniper tree! Not to worry, it was looking pretty bad, having gotten a bad infestation of bag worms):

More up close shot:

We made a few other improvement too, to our back yard. We added a shade sail to our south facing deck which really helped make it more comfortable back there with a dark colored stain of the deck underfoot. Also, we added a stock tank pool, which is bigger than the other pools we came up with and is a little bit more in-destructible too.

We added some of the same white granite gravel around the pool to cut down on weeds and grass clippings that would make their way into my house ;)

This girl loves the stock tank!

Some technical difficulties are seen here--the pool got rusty looking because the chlorine was reacting with the metal. This year, we are going to spray 6-8 coats of rubber sealant instead of just one ;) 

Visuals of the set up at the end of the summer, on a foggy morning:

Last but not least, we have some pictures taken by my brother in law, who just got a drone/license and was having some fun taking some pics of our property when they visited in May:

And that's all for now, folks!