At the end of this week, my life speed is going to ramp up to a ridiculous level. Not only will I be packing my bags to head to Jordan with the fifth season of the Columbia OmniTen program, but I will also be preparing for my trip to Bali….immediately afterwards. Not sure what I’m talking about? Not to worry—that’s a post for later this week!
Knowing that my life is about to go haywire {in a completely good way!}, I made the conscious decision to spend the past two weekends laying low and catching up on everything that needed to be done. I won’t be back in the country until April 21 so that means there is a lot of prep work that needed to be sorted before then.
Exhibit A: Landscaping!
No, I’m not talking about the kind that I do professionally, although I am definitely having to sort out the situation at work so that it doesn’t go to shambles when I am gone! Instead, I’m talking about our front yard!
When Will and I moved in together last year, I made a vow to completely redo the landscaping on our home. To the naked eye, it was fine but I spend 40 hours per week designing other people’s landscapes. I have been dying to create gardens and outdoor spaces of my own, and truthfully, I am beyond ecstatic to start from scratch! Because all of my changes are so drastic, it is going to take us a lot of time {and money} to accomplish everything on my list, so we decided to start with our front yard.
First up? Removing the hodge podge of rock from all of the beds! You see, I hate rock. I don’t love the way that it looks and I think it stresses plants during the summer months when it heats up and warms the ground. Instead, I prefer mulch. Mulch helps conserve water by preventing evaporation, but it also naturally degrades into the soil. In short, mulch is my friend!
Rock for days
To make it worse, our front yard had two different kinds of rock, creating this chaotic mix of stone. No bueno y’all! Needless to say, it took us an entire week in September, but we rented a dumpster and hauled away all of it. This left us with some naked looking beds all winter, but I didn’t care—it was so much better!
I also enlisted Will to dig holes for me on a beautiful Sunday morning last fall. I think the Broncos were playing and sadly, it turned into one of the better games of the season. Unfortunately for my loving fiance, he missed that game…because he was digging holes so I could plant bulbs!
Our neighborhood is freaking Watership Down and has SO many rabbits! Because of this, I avoided tulips {they are a smorgasbord for bunnies}, and planted daffodils, hyacinths, and a couple allium. I put the hyacinths and daffodils in clumps along our driveway, and the allium in front of our window. I was really cautious when installing the bulbs because I didn’t want to fall prey to what so many Denver gardeners experience: just when their bulbs begin to bloom in late March, WHAM! A late-season blizzard blows through the city and kills the flowers. I’ve been watching my bulbs pop through the soil every day and they should be in full color within a week or two….so excited!
Last Saturday was our most recent day o’ landscaping and it was completely successful. We both really wanted to go skiing but instead, we spent the day in the sunshine of our front yard! First of all, we demolished this hideous tree that has been lurking in our yard ever since we moved in. I swear, this sucker has been the bane of my existence for the past year, so I was beyond excited to chop it down and tear out the stump. Peace out, tree!
We also spent a few hours digging out some leftover tree stumps from the past owners. We’ve learned from Google Earth that our yard used to be lined with various shrubs that the prior owners removed. Sadly, they took the easy way out and cut the trees down but left the stumps in the ground. It definitely takes some serious effort to dig out the roots, but I’m so glad that we did. Now, the beds are wide open and ready for new gardens!
Lastly, I decided to redo our edging. I would estimate that the existing edging had been installed in 1980, right around when the house was built….it was a nightmare! It was all rusted and bent and I knew it had to go when Tals stepped on a piece and cut her paw. Nothing hurts my baby girl! I debated between a few types, but in the end, I went with bend-a-board edging. It is the most expensive kind available, but it is completely puppy-safe. Plus, I figure I will only install the new stuff once, so I might as well make it the good kind!
Fortunately, most of our bed lines were fine, so we just had to tear out the old stuff and replace it with the new. There were a few areas that I needed to completely install, but truthfully, that isn’t that much more work. It only involved digging a trench which doesn’t take a ton of time. However, I’ve been staring at the finished product for a week now, and I finally decided that I need to do a bit more. We have two separate beds in our front yard and I think I want to connect them to create a bed that circles around the majority of the yard, which I didn’t do before. Looks like I’m headed back out!
Are we done? Not even close, but we likely won’t finish the front yard until next summer. I want to add a few yards of compost to the beds and then add the mulch and call it for this year. I recently decided that the bed in the top photo needs a rock wall, so that’s the first item on my Spring, 2015 list! After that, I will finally get to design my beds!!
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How you feel about landscaping and working in the yard—love it or hate it?
Quite a few people email me with plant/landscaping questions…is that something that I should cover in my posts more frequently? DIY landscaping tips?