a bit about the yard

well, philip and i are sitting around at boston logan airport so i'll get started a bit on the yard.  here is what the house looked like the very first day we saw it.

february 2010

it was the first weekend in february and it didn't look too pretty.  luckily we are well versed in "it's what's on the inside that counts," so we were able to see past the grim exterior into the gorgeous interior.  i won't go into the interior now but anyway, here it is, our lovely home in highlands.  the pretty house to our right belongs to our awesome neighbors, e & b.

may 2010

june 2010

after months of paperwork and phone calls, we finally closed on the house in april.  it took a little while before we were able to start on the yard; for those of you familiar with colorado's weather you'll know we can get snow all the way until the middle of may.  so we were a bit patient.  but once may did come, this is what we saw underneath the snow in front.  the right side of the yard needed some serious TLC.  weeds in the grass, brown splotches, and only one nice green area where a dog had obviously relieved itself.  on the right side there wasn't grass, but we couldn't quite see what was there.  something would sprout up in the spring we were sure... but we would have to wait a little bit longer to see the overtaking of weeds we would need to remove.  up in the front against the porch were various dead bushes, a baby tree with roots growing down towards our foundation and a dead rosebush tied to a trellis on the other side of the steps.  absolutely lovely.  here is what was growing on the left side of the lawn.  as you can see in the june picture, the right side of the lawn looked better after much in april, but the left side had to go.  and this was just the front yard :)

here is the lovely, lovely backyard.  4th of july weekend we gathered some family and very kind friends to help us out and start the backyard project ourselves.  we dug up dead trees, knocked down multiple bee hives, whacked down weeds literally taller than myself and sprayed round up til our knees bled.  it was an insane amount of work in one day, and all we actually did was prep work for a landscaper to come in and lay sod.  here's a few more snapshots from that day.

backyard, july 4th 2010

nate, aj and philip hard at work

towards the end of the working day

my herbs, which died within a week or two

i am really pretty proud though.  and mostly it was due to the nagging of my wonderful girlfriends layne & walker.  i was complaining about our impossible time hiring a reliable landscape crew and the girls gave me the necessary motivation to just start the work ourselves.  and they were right.  we saved a ton of $$ on labor just by doing the hard part ourselves.  laying the sod and creating the flower bed were a little beyond our means -- but i still feel a sense of pride and accomplishment when i look out back, knowing i helped create this.

the finished product (for this summer anyway!)

pretty decent, right?  we don't have anything planted out back and haven't done anything with the patio (besides mass amounts of weeding).  i'm hoping to do more of that this summer.  i'd also love to have a little herb garden if possible, but i'm not sure if that will work out.  lots more to do - a homeowner's work is never done :)

here's a few shots of the front yard, after we had our landscaper replace the crazy weeds on the left side with grass.  i planted about six different species on the left of the walkway up to the house.  to be honest at this moment i don't remember if they were annuals (or is it perennials?) or not, but i think i might have to re-plant this spring.  the big bush in the middle of the left side grass is a daisy bush which was there when we moved in.  i love it; daisies make me happy.  we also loved the roses at the front of the house back to life and enjoyed the most fragrant white roses all throughout the summer and into the fall.  i'm certain it's my pop pop helping my garden with his soul.  

there's also a shot of philip mowing the lawn for the first time.  notice how lovely green it is -- a little bit of fertilizer goes a long way!  the lawnmower is a generous hand-me-down from our awesome neighbors i mentioned before, e & b.  they had a spare and probably noticed how insanely long our grass was while philip took his time researching lawnmowers on homedepot.com... 

i hope to have more pictures as we thaw out of this winter but nothing new to share yard-wise now.  next time i'll either add some photos of the fireplace (all new!) or share some photos from the holidays... a little belated, i know.

enjoy!  until next time...

buona notte,
alaina