A Little Before And After: Our Yard Spring 2018

One of my happy places is our yard, especially when it looks pretty awesome! Honestly, last summer the yard was more of a stress than a joy but that was mostly because Dave had sciatica and so it was all up to me (and whatever work I could wrangle out of the kids). This spring yard work has been a two person task and it's been so much more enjoyable. So here's a little "before" and "after" for you. Also known as "more pictures of our yard than you ever wanted to see!" Ha!

This is the bed behind our playroom earlier this spring.

I did some work on it earlier but there was still a lot of grass growing in it for some reason? Weird.

 

I finally finished weeding and edging it last week and this weekend I planted four gomphrena in a mix of purple and white in the big empty spot. Yay! I'm so happy this spot is complete. I'm also happy our bleeding heart didn't die over the winter. Phew.

 The daylily bed by the clothesline just needed some edging. It looks much better now.

Did I mention that I'm so happy that Dave con contribute to yard work this year. Not only can he mow (Yaaaayyyy!!!), but he dug all the grass out of our two patios.

On Saturday we went to a nursery (finally!), and I bought 64 annuals. (A few years ago I somehow bought 103 so this didn't feel like a lot.) I also bought two bags of mulch.

Happiness :)

Because we went to Kenya and were gone for over two weeks, I didn't plant pots last summer. I thought they would be too much work for someone while we were gone. However, this year we are only gone for bits and pieces at a time so I wanted to plant some pots. This area needed some weeding and attention.

 

 I planted petunias and snapdragons here and I can't wait until they all bloom.

I'd done work in the "light post bed" previously and I thought it needed some mulch to clean it up a little. After I took the "after" picture, Dave pulled all the weeds in front of the rocks so it looks even better now.

Our main front bed is where most of my annuals go. Unfortunately, it gets a lot of shade so I have to find shade loving plants for it. I'd already weeded it once this year but it needed it again. It also needed some colour.

I planted sixteen impatiens and four marine bells and it's so much prettier now.

This bed has always been the bane of my existence. There was a big bush I wanted to trim one year and it turned out that it was mostly dead inside. So we got rid of it. Anyways, since we rarely see this bed, and it's filled with a couple of hydrangeas, it's hard to care too much about it. 

I discovered that one of the hydrangeas was dead so I pulled it out and weeded the rest of the bed. Then I remember the extra mulch we had so, after I planted a few impatiens, I filled the rest in with mulch. It looks so much better now, and I actually kind of like this bed as opposed to being glad I never see it.

So I'm excited about everything that has been accomplished over the past week. Now I just need it to rain so I can weed, edge, and deal with a few more problem areas. I can't wait for that to happen so I can show you "before" and "after" pictures of those areas too.

Then I can just enjoy our yard for a few minutes before I need to weed again. Ha!