Been too long....

It's been nearly one year since I've posted an update... and for a while, there was good reason.  There was nothing new to update.  But Spring Fever has hit and friend availability (and a good sale at Lowes) has inspired me to get out there and FINALLY get the front yard going.  YIPPEEE!

First off, remember this?  These were my front yard BEFORE pics....

Oh... and embarassingly, some After pics too...

Well, the yard never got any better, the stairs remained overgrown with awful looking grass and the plants never seemed to thrive.  I think my water sprinkler wasn't working for a few months and everything became a fire hazard....   I tried just digging out the grass, but it's tough and just doesn't want to give up trying to take over the world.

BUT recently, I did lots of sewing for a good friend who is also a handyman by trade.  And Lowe's had wall blocks and pavers on sale at a  price I couldn't resist...  Now, handyguy has all the tools we need and is perfectly willing to trade services for some hours of work. So DH and I picked up the materials, and handyguy and I got to work.

Less than a week later,  VOILA!  The foundation is set.  Oh, we also laid black plastic down after this picture was taken and added a few more sprinkler heads to keep the plants from drying out again.  I can't believe it's finally happening!   I know it's not very impressive yet, naked as it is... but just you wait, it'll be great!

Now I'm waiting for word on my load of compost.... (free from another friend), which is due to arrive sometime this week.    Then the planting can begin!  Boy... I'm so happy I might burst!  :)

So far, I've spent about $120.00 for materials.  And I don't expect to spend much more until planting time. Sand is free from the beach, gravel I got from my mom (she's been wanting someone to take it away), and sprinkler materials from a box of stuff I found in the garage.  Apparently, DH and his friends thought they didn't need to use them when they installed the sprinklers the first time.  I'm hoping I can find a few beautiful plants that will thrive in this hot spot.  But now that they'll get water regularly, I think everything will be OK.

July's update picture

This is the view from my front window now... Much better than when we started. I moved the little mandarin plant into a shadier spot and it seems to be recovering. And my cheap $0.78 dahlias and blue flowers (what is that?) should help ad some instant color. My yellow callas might be coming up soon, looks like one of them is breaking ground. Looks like it's time to cut the grass again and get more work done on the rest of the yard.

So I'll work a little on this spot and make sure I also spend time maintaining the rest of the yard. The strip along the street is looking really bad again, but I want to redo that one too.

Making a bit of progress

It's the beginning of July and I've made a little bit of progress. Pictures will come in the next post... really. It's just too dark to take them right now and I didn't realize I didn't have my card in my camera this afternoon. DUH.

The little section along the wall is starting to take shape. I have a few callas planted, though I'm still waiting for some of those rhizomes to come up. Yesterday afternoon, there was a mongoose playing amongst my callas... I thought he was going to kill them so I chased him out. He was rolling over the leaves and chewing on them. It'll look pretty empty till the callas grow in, I'm considering planting some dahlias or something till they do. Then I'll move them into the future flower garden in the backyard.

The gardenias are looking good. I hope they grow here. I had a couple planted by the front porch, but they died. And it looks like the little mandarin plant will need to be moved. I got it at the Urban Garden plant sale for $1.00, so if it doesn't make it, I won't feel bad. But it's so pretty with it's orange middle... I'll have to dig it up and move it to a more shady spot.

And of course, I finally got all 3 arecas in. I will have to start doing this in the evening since it's starting to get really hot out there during the day... Except coming home at 8pm doesn't leave much time for me to get out there and work.

Gosh... I can't believe it took me 5 months to get this little bit done. Hopefully by the end of the year I'll have the whole front yard finished.

Update June

Over the past week, I've dug out a little bit more grass in the front but it's not ready for another areca yet. In the meantime, the grass on the side yard has been trimmed, gingers cleaned up again, and a little bit of weeding has been going on. So basically, I've just been doing a bit of maintenance.

We've also been working on cleaning up in granny's yard and it's looking quite nice now. I'm thinking of trimming her stephanotis and fixing her wall. Except I'm not sure I'd be able to do it.

Progress Report

This weekend, I planted 2 of my arecas and a couple of calla bulbs into the ground. I don't know if they'll grow in that spot between the arecas, but I have a couple in the backyard between my ti-leaf plants that are doing really well. Now, I need to take out more grass, plant the last areca and place a border to keep the grass out. I'll also have to get more of that free mulch from our local community college so I can mulch around my arecas so they don't die out. I hope there's enough space for them there, I planted them about 3 feet away from the wall and 4 feet apart.

Here's a pic of my progress.


This week, I'm going to go back to spending about 15 minutes on weekdays to maintain my yard. The weeds are getting big and the grass needs trimming. My whole yard needs some maintenance since I've let it go for a month. Here I thought I'd spend a couple hours rather than a few minutes a day.

Removing sod

is such a pain.

I spent a couple hours this weekend, rather than 20 minutes a day, to remove some of the sod along the wall. I'm also shaping that area so I can plant my areca palms. But I can see it'll be several weekends before I'll be ready to put in the edging strip. I'm considering just laying bricks and making a simple border for the time being. Then I'd be able to do a little bit at a time and still plant an areca palm every week or so. I WAS going to use that plastic landscape edging stuff, but if I can find something nicer, like rocks, I'd use those.

Fishtails GONE!

But the spot looks so barren and ugly now. Of course, I have lots of work to finish it up yet, so I don't feel bad. I spent another couple hours yesterday to clean it out since I did hardly any gardening this past week.

It will improve... then there will be nicer pics. Over the next week, I will plan and start transforming the front yard. It's a big job so I might only tackle it once a week for a few hours on my "day off."

In the meantime, Here's some inspiration I found...

Slide show for the sidewalk planter aka Hell garden.

Plans... but I need more ideas!!!

I finally drew out a simple plan for the front area of our home. Roses, flowers, and I don't know.... I need inspiration and ideas. Guess my evenings will be spent searching for inspiration. Here's the front yard plan so far. Not much, but it's a small space. I don't know if all these things will grow, but we've had some luck with the flowers the kids planted. THey're still alive and blooming. I think they need to be fertilized though.

Clearing out the fishtail fern

I didn't do much during the week, but I did spend today working hard in the yard for a couple hours. I cleaned up the weeds along the wall and started clearing out the fishtail fern. It's so overgrown and was difficult to pull out, but progress has been made. I'll continue to keep working this week. I really want to finish planting those arecas soon.

Back to work...

Okay break time is over and I really should keep up with my outdoor chores. The kids are back in school so I can resume my regular 20 minutes/day schedule. This week, I'll work on zones 1 and 2. Mostly just keeping things neatened up, but I'd like to have the area by the wall ready to plant an areca palm or two this weekend. It would be nice to have some shade and something nice to look at by the front window. This is the mess we see now...And the afternoon sun shines right into the front room making it HOT! No one enjoys working on LEGO projects at that hour.... A few areca palms along the wall to filter the sunlight would make the view from this room much nicer.

today we plant... a little bit

Well, at least this week we got one little section planted and weeded. There still is a lot of work to do here. But work has kept me very busy so I haven't done quite as much as I wanted to. We worked for a few longer sessions, maybe a total of 1 hour and was able to get quite a bit done. I did most of the clean up and prep, and the kids did the planting and choosing of plants.

Here's a couple of pics of the section we worked on. We also cleared the extra shoes off the porch, but I still need to get a shoe shelf....

Update

I took a day off today, we're preparing for a birthday party and I have a deadline coming up for work. But the daily 15-20 minutes I did over the past 3 days is beginning to show some progress.

As of right now, it isn't worth taking a picture. I've cleared a spot for the kids to plant their flowers, but everything around it is still a bit of a mess. The porch has been cleared of excess footwear, and swept clean. It isn't beautiful, but it's fairly neat.

I'm working on a plan and hope to have it done soon.

Zone 2: Front yard and porch

I decided to just move our zone schedule down a week and start from zone 1 again come March. The whole yard needs tending to, but since these are the most visible zones, we'd better work these first.

So Zone 2: the front yard and porch, will be cleaned up this week.

Before pictures:

We will also be helping my mother clean up her yard (and home) during the week. She's been meaning to do so forever.