For the past couple of weeks, I have made it a personal agenda to give our yard a makeover. Since we bought the house, there have been things that I haven’t been able to change to fit my liking. Much of that had to do with the fact that it just plain gets hot in Alabama in the summer. Also, it was pretty overwhelming…I’d say about 60 percent of our yard area was covered with leaves prior to this. That included all of our beds in the front yard and the vast majority of the back yard as well. The back yard was a combination of this ugly gray “forest floor” effect, bare earth where nothing could make headway, overgrown areas of weeds, vines, and some small plants, and some grass struggling to grow amidst the wild violets that had made major inroads in our yard.

Now, as some of you know, I’m not afraid of yard work. I have a long history with it. I can tell you stories of hauling dirt around the yard, creating new beds from scratch on summer Saturdays, planting literally over a hundred red tops along the perimeter of my parents’ yard…the list goes on and on. Somewhere during that time I figured out that I actually kind of enjoyed it. I learned pretty quickly, though, that I would enjoy it more when it was actually my yard that was the one being worked on.

Well, the years passed, and we finally got around to the part of our major purchase list that involved the yard. You’ve already heard about the chipper/shredder, which I have put to good use creating leaf mulch (home improvement stores call it “soil conditioner” and sell it for $3 a bag). Well, last Wednesday evening I took it up a notch. That was when the dump truck from the landscape materials company came to my driveway, not once, not twice, but three times with a load of mulch. According to a home improvement website, a cubic foot of pine bark mulch weighs about 22.5 pounds. This was 24 cubic yards – over seven tons of mulch.

I finished spreading it Friday evening. Ready to see the results? (By the way, these pictures are 80-100K each, so if you’re still on dial-up, it’ll be slow…)

The Front Yard

This was a major upgrade from what it was. At first, the beds just had leaves, and the edge of the front yard was down to the bare soil from being washed over so many times (the storm drain next to the property still hasn’t been cleaned out…I’m really frustrated with the county highway department, but that’s another entry).

Anyway, what you’re seeing here is after my prepping the beds with a lot of the leaf-based mulch that I made last weekend. Then the pine bark mulch went over it. I like the overall effect, especially at the edge of the yard. It really sets it off from the forest, along with the forsythia.

The Back Yard

First, the new seating area!

This entire area was once just a tangled mess of vines, weeds, and old plants. We stripped it down to bare soil except for three bushes and the monkey grass you see at the right-hand side of the picture. I used the hardwood mulch that I had chipped up and some of the smooth stones that we found in the process of clearing the area out…

and we laid the path you see there. I think it’s my favorite part of the entire yard…it meanders underneath the branches, inviting you to come sit at the seating area. Yep, that’s the bistro set that was on the deck. I don’t know if we’ll keep it there for now, but that will probably be the place it ends up. Whenever we build our new deck, we’ll be getting a bigger table for it, so this is the perfect place for the bistro set to end up.

Kelly is in charge of “whimsy” for this area. Tiny birds will live in these houses. 🙂

This is Kelly’s (and as you might guess, the dogs’ as well) favorite part of the new area. The center ball is actually a daisy ball, which made Kelly fall in love with the fountain the second she laid eyes on it. It’s nice to have a water feature in this area…it adds to the overall atmosphere.

Here’s a shot taken from Kelly’s chair. The dogs actually do a pretty good job of coming right up the pathway!

Now, going from left to right, here’s a panoramic view of the back yard taken from the deck…

Now, I know that this won’t win us a beautification award or anything. But to me, it feels miles ahead of where it was before. I wish we had taken “before” pics for reference. I told Kelly as we were eating lunch in the new area today that before I felt ashamed of our yard. I didn’t want to bring people to the back yard because it just looked that bad to me, and I didn’t really like the front that much, either. But for a little over $500 and two weeks of hard labor, we’ve made the yard pretty respectable. Oh, and I now fit comfortably into size 32 jeans again.