Yard-Work Starts to Pay Off

After a lot of hard work, our front yard is slowly getting to a point that I can start to show it off! And this will also explain a lack in postings for the last month! So, for the last month, some of you know that we decided to start fresh in our front yard. As you can see in this picture below, it didn't look so hot. We had some bad kind of grass taking over and killing it to re-seed just didn't cut it, so we cut it out!

Del and I rented a sod cutter for a few hrs and took on the task of ripping it out ourselves.

After 3 hrs of sod cutting, 5hrs of loading and hauling it out (and bring dirt back in), and MANY sore muscles, our yard got to this point...

Sadly, that 8hrs of hard work still wasn't enough. Over the next week or so we slowly finished getting rid of the grass and spreading the above mound of dirt along with 1 more we brought in later. Our front yard is now equipped with brand new sprinkler heads and a nicely leveled layer of top soil awaiting its new sod delivery, which is scheduled for this coming Wednesday! Can't wait!

While we've been waiting for the sod to be delivered, we turned our attention to the main flower bed in front of our living room. One weekend we took a trip into the mountains and brought back some very big, but very FREE rocks to add to the bed. (We later learned that this is illegal...so good thing we got what we wanted!)
After many trips to several stores, we settled on some plants from Lowe's and got them placed.

Here's a little different angle...it's funny how the look changes from every view. I thought I'd stew over the placement of everything for a few days...

but instead Del and I took initiative and dug right in...we made a quick trip to D&B Supply and got a 1/2 wine barrel we'd had our eye on for some time. We placed it in the center and will fill it with flowers as we buy them.

We knew we wanted the grasses as a background and I'm a HUGE fan of these lilies so this was the obvious starting point.

There's still a lot of fill in work to do but at least we've got more than just dirt!! And even since this picture was taken we added a few bunches of Blue Star Creeper to spread between and around the rocks, and a couple of Crimson Pygmy Barberry shrubs for the outside corners.
Del told me today that his goal is to have the front yard done, a lusher back yard, and the exterior paint done by mid-June. Sounds like a good goal to me, just have decide on a paint color! I'll try to make sure I update again before then though.