Outside Before and After & What We Have Been Up To

When we moved into this house it was pretty barren. The owners had planted monkey grass randomly through out the yard in hopes it would take over and look like grass. It did not work. There are 35 trees on our property, which makes both spring and fall a nightmare. In the spring the oak trees drop thousands probably millions of these yellow seed things that stick EVERYWHERE, and of coarse the fall brings us 125 bags of leaves. As first time homeowners we are crazy about our yard, and obviously my OCD carries outside too. I do all the yard work, I am so precise about my yard my neighbors laugh. Oh well, look at mine and look at theirs...just sayin.

 I am so proud that after just 1 year our yard went from this...

to this...

Amazing huh?!

We have been working really hard in the yard this year.

I like to start every Spring with some new hanging plants. Last year I had all flowers, so this year I decided to go with some ferns and flowers. I really like it!

We put in some path lights to guide the way to the door at night. So Cool! They are solar, which is good and bad. On sunny days they will stay lite all night long, but on cloudy days like today they will only make it till 2 or 3am...oh well no one is coming over or leaving at that hour anyway.

We gave a good scrub to our patio furniture, it was NASTY! This year I am going to get some outdoor pillows and hopefully an ottoman too!

On the other side of the yard, we cut down some trees. I wish I could find a before picture of this, these trees being gone opens up the space so much! And yay that should be 20 bags less I have to rake this fall!

We still need to clean up the excess growth on the trees this weekend, they are looking a bit furry! And once those stupid seed things stop falling I will clean the flower beds and replace the mulch. I always to red mulch, I guess because our front door is red, I like the extra pop the red mulch gives.

So that is that, the front of our house! Big changes from a year ago.

What do you think? Any additions that would spruce it up more?

Jen