Working Out with Yard Work

 The projects are non-stop here, and now that the weather has been nice, we have decided to concentrate on the outside.  Our house had horrible curb appeal when we bought it.  Here you can see it before we had it painted gray, added window boxes and shutters, and painted the front door red.

 

Last year we did a couple of fixes to the front such as cut down some bushes and grasses and add window boxes, here.  We had the house painted,  which made a huge difference, here.  Mr. Spring and I had our focus on the backyard overhaul  here and here and DIY patio (here).  This year we have decided the front yard needs some love.

 

The previous owner did not want any yard work, and he planted ivy in the  place  of grass.  It had good potential but tons of weeds and a variety of other things were growing in it.  It just looked blah, and we wanted BAM!

 

Our first step before ripped out everything was to figure out a plan and to see if we had anything worth keeping.  We met with Erin from Escapes Garden Consulting. She is a landscape architect by day, and this is an on-the-side gig.  Also, her rates are very reasonable.   Anyway, she was great and put together a plan of attack for us along with a list of plants in the style that would complement our house.  This saved us a lot of research time.  She even suggested the plants that we needed to save and work with.

 

 

We wanted to start small, so our first step was the section filled with ivy on the left of the stairs.  There were day lilies, and Erin recommended we transplant them to this area and then fill it in with bulbs and other flowers.

 

Here in another view of the side overflowing with ivy and weeds.  Plus, there is  a shrub we already cut back.

 

Ripping out the ivy was a slow process.  Getting all of the roots was a challenge.

 

Here is another progress shot.  The rocks are acting as a temporary retaining wall and work for now.  In the future we will replace them with something more permanent and attractive.

 

Here is the after.  We transplanted the lilies and put down newspaper to try to prevent weeds before we applied some mulch.  We are thrilled with the look and can’t wait to tackle the rest of the yard.  It is going to take some time because this little section took a lot longer than we expected.  Oh well. I enjoyed being outside, and pulling ivy is a good work-out.

 

Cheers!