Yard progress

Ready to see the progress on our yard? These "before" pictures are actually from when we moved in...over a year ago. So imagine everything with an additional year's of growth before we ripped stuff out. The house was vacant for over a year before we moved in. And one of the previous owners (about 5 or 6 years ago) was a master gardener. I would love to see what the yard looked like when she was keeping it up. We've been told by our neighbors that our house/yard was featured in the local home/garden show. Too bad it got so out of hand!


BEFORE (April 2012)

PROGRESS (as of July 2013)

We recently put seed down in the area on the bottom right where all those shrubs and plants were...which is why it's spotty looking.

Where we ripped out a lot of plants, leveled the garden bed to match our lawn, and put down some seed

So...previous owner put that grass thing in a pot in the ground. I guess to keep it contained so it wouldn't take over? We haven't gotten around to figuring out how we're going to get that out just yet...

Trees partially gone. Had to take a break because it was 90º out and our allergies were going nuts.

My dahlias!

This was full of weeds and plants. We took everything out except the rose bushes.

Both sides of the driveway were covered in weeds/plats/ivy. Where those is sitting on the bottom right was a bunch of evergreen bushes.

Got some sprouts coming up we need to take care of, but this whole thing was covered in 3 or 4 huge bushes we removed and ivy that was taking over (the ivy is what's trying to come back).

Previously, we didn't even know that little cement path (we believe it's the old driveway) existed. This whole area was overtaken by some acanthus that was badly overgrown.

Progress, but still lots to do!

More plant/shrub removal.

This is the area of the yard we have yet to tackle. It's going to take another long weekend with help. 

I don't even want to know what's back there...

The view of our patio at the moment. Had to put all those pavers/landscaping stones somewhere when we removed the flower bed in front. Planning to post them on craig's list in the coming weeks to get them out!

Our dirt mound growing weeds...this is where we dumped all the extra dirt from the front flowerbed until we figure out what to do with it.

So there you have it! Obviously, we still have a lot to do, but we've definitely made a lot of progress too! Our ultimate goal is to get a lot of the remaining plants removed and get more grass down so the girls have a better yard to play in. Plus, it'll be a lot less maintenance for us to have more grass and less plants. It's a shame to remove some of them because I think they could be really pretty if they were healthy...but most of them are to far overgrown and unhealthy to even transplant. Though I did attempt to transplant a couple...we'll see how they do. It's taken us this long because with the kids, only one of us can be out in the yard at a time. It's not fully fenced, so we can't both work without keeping a constant eye on the girls.

I'll get a house tour up too from when we first moved in...and then I'll post Eden's room (the only room that looks different with the exception of our furniture being in the house).