landscape my yard

This is an ongoing thing that I don’t know will ever be complete. It’s like having a goal to do the laundry. I’ve moved some lilies from a bed next to the house to a new bed on the side of the garage. Now I want to see if I can get some daffodil bulbs to put in between the lilies.

I want to level off a piece of land behind my garage and put a patio there and maybe a fire pit. maybe I’ll get some time to start working on that next summer. Now it’s starting to get too cold for all this outside work. Before everything freezes though I have a lot of brush I want to clean up and some wood from that old pine that I want to split up and get rid of.

We weeded the flower bed in the front, trimmed the redmaple, and really trimed the giant forsythia bush down (those things go crazy if you let them) then moved all the brush out of the way and raked the lawn. I also put some grass seed down on a big dirt spot where the forsythia bush used to be. Hopefully it will come up in the spring and it won’t just blow away before the ground is completely frozen.

I’d still like to get the chainsaw started up and cut a tree down if I can before the winter. I also have some bamboo that is out of control and I hacked it down to the ground. I’m hoping to get rid of it and put a nice tree there. I also planted a dwarf cherry tree and a rhododendron bush. We’ll see what happens in the spring!

I have the bed in front of the house doing alright. Most of the flowers there are new this year so I’m hoping next year they will do better. The spot next to the garage is going out of control with weeds. I need to get over there and pull out the weeds before that is all that is left!
I need to drill some weep holes in the retaining walls before this winter so there is better drainage and I need to do some work on the gutters to keep the water away from the house.
Oh and I’m in the process of tearing out a tree but I’ve gotten to the point where I need a chainsaw, and I have some wild bamboo that just goes crazy every year that I want to get rid of.

I think these are tulips, but I’m not sure. Anyway this is the first one to bloom.

Rather than add another goal I thought I would just put this one here. There is an old solid concrete retaining wall in the front of my house that allows for no water drainage at all. It’s leaning forward and cracking. I think once it’s replaced it will look better, keep water out of the cellar and maybe even keep some of the pressure off my neighbors walls as well.
http://www.creativehomeowner.com/index.php?pane=project&projectid=chwlk173

Here is the side of the garrage after and before.

Today I got some helpers and we rented a rototiler from Home Depot. I cleard all the brush and weeds next to the garrage so I can plant something useful there in the spring. I also cleared all the grass in front of the porch and put pine mulch down. I got some bulbs to plant there so they’ll come up in the spring.

Earlier in the week I mowed the grass for the last time and my wife helped me trim some of the bushes down.

In about a week I’m going to be digging up all the grass in the space between my front porch and the retaining wall there. My mother in law is going to help plant some of those plants that come back every year (Pre annuals?). There will be all different plants that bloom at different times of the year so there is always something blooming there (as long as the ground is not frozen).

I’m thinking that this will be a better use of that land and it will be one less space that I have to mow grass. Then maybe in the spring I want all the grass on the left side of the house out and replaced with some ground cover.

This is what I want to do (in no particular order)

-Trim the pine trees in the back so the branches are up higher
-plant some shade plants under the trees
-create a border between the grass and the area under the tress as well as next to the garrage and in front of the house.
- plant creeping juniper in front of the small retaining wall so I don’t have to mow there.
-built a brick sidewalk from the front stairs to the garrage.
-replace the small retaining wall with concrete blocks that look more like stone.
-build tiered retaining walls in the back so I have a large flat area where I can have a patio and a fire pit.
-remove all the weeds on the far side of the garrage and put in a ground cover that will come back.
-trim all the bushes so it looks less like a jungle.

It seems like such a big job. There are plenty of projects to work on inside the house so I don’t know how much money I want to invest outside the house right now. There are some things I can do without spending much money though.

My mother in-law came over and planted some flowers in the bed along side the house. She also planted some yellow flowers near the stairs in the front. I’ve been watering them and they’re all doing well.

Then there is this strip of land between my garage and the neighbor’s house. It is a real mess. From what he has told me (the neighbor) the whole place was once very well taken care of by one of the previous owners, but the last two owners before my wife and I just let all the plants outside go crazy. Last year I cut down some weed trees that had really gotten big. Now all there is are some bushes I can’t identify and a lot of weeds on the ground in this space. There are also some violets that look nice though. I’m thinking of digging up the violets and planting them along side the garage as a border since it is very hard to mow the lawn there. Then I want to clear out everything else there and plant a ground cover that will take it over.