Pebbles, Mulch, and Some Pesky Grass

As predicted this weekend was a busy one. Saturday morning Mango and I woke up bright and early to tackle the arduous task of :::Pause for a Dramatic Climax::: the front yard! Yes, it was time, we could not put it off any longer. The poor thing was severely neglected.

Of course, in my frenzy to finally get started I forgot to take some before shots, but I managed to stop jumping up and down once we finished yesterday to take some after shots. Here's the finished product after I hosed it down to an inch of its life...hey, the flower dude said to use a lot of water. In case your wondering what that dark spot is in front of the mulch, its dirt. Believe it or not, no one had sod for sale this weekend! Something about all the rain and whatnot, but honestly, how do you run out of grass? So there it is, our bald area. I plan on cruising by the Home Depot after work in the hopes that they put some out. We decided to create a little stone border with some stepping stones to make it easier to walk to the front door. Mango dug the trench and I was rock girl...didn't turn out to bad if you ask me. The kids next door loved it, decided to play hopscotch on it the next day. In between us and the neighbors were these odd, and I dare say, diseased looking bushes. With my trusty hedge clippers, a shovel, and Mango's saw we chopped those babies down and put up some new ones:

They're a bit tiny right now, but the nursery had a sample of them fully grown in and they looked wonderful and thick. Exactly what we were looking for. Grow my little hedges! Grow! Last, but not least were of course, my flower pots. I went with some pretty, bright yellow flowers this time and decided to put some simple green Japanese Boxwoods (aren't you impressed at how I remembered the name?) in the big pots by the door:

What made this project even more fun was that the neighbors and their kids jumped in to help and even decided to work on their yard too. The kids had their mini shovels and gloves, and helped us toss out weeds while we worked. Even the neighbors that we hardly see came out to say hello. So overall, it was an exhausting, but really fun weekend.

Now all we need is that pesky grass!