Springtime!

Hooray for spring! It finally pulled me out of my project rut. I guess the sunshine brought to light a few things in the yard that needed to be done. We started with the driveway. There were a lot of spots that were dirt only. It was definitely ready for some new rock. 

On Friday morning, while John was at work, the rock was dropped off in our driveway. The bad part was, they couldn't get all the way to the West side of the driveway because of the power lines. Of course that was the side that needed it the most. Insert backbreaking work here

We shoveled and raked for a few hours and the end product looks great! Luckily we had plenty of work planned for the next day to loosen up our backs after all that fun.

Next up was some landscaping. I really wanted to plant a couple more trees in the yard. John and I trucked to Lowe's and picked up 2 trees. One we put on the East side of the shed (the little twig the left of the other two trees). It is a Silver Maple Tree and will provide some great shade to the area for the next owners. In this picture you can also see that I put some patio pavers out in front of the shed. This should help out with pulling things out of the shed. There is also a new little pot there. That pot houses a small raspberry bush that John picked out. It should only be about 2-3 ft in radius, so it is perfect for that little pot. We may have to move it to a little more shade, but we will wait and see how it fairs there.  After talking with Mom, We need to trim up the far tree on the right of this picture. That is on the to do list for another day.

Next up on the landscaping agenda was wrapping the front flower bed around the East side of the house. This area is just a pain to mow and was begging for some plants. we dug it all out yesterday. I already had the plants for this area. Last year, I planted 2 hydrangea bushes. One hydrangea was by the shed and the other was at the front of the house. Both of those places were too sunny for the hydrangeas. Hopefully this is a better location since it will get morning sun and afternoon shade. We put out a couple bags of mulch this morning, but will still need to do more. That may be a next weekend activity.

After removing the hydrangeas, we had to buy something to replace them. At the front of the house, I got a Flowering Quince. Apparently it's a Southern bush and is very drought tolerant. 

This variety is a sort of pinky orange. It should get quite a bit taller and will hopefully help hide the trash cans a bit better than they are now.

Lastly, we need to talk about the second tree we bought. This one is an October Glory Maple. It is planted to the left of the other trees in the yard and is on the West side of the house. It too should be a good shade tree someday. That is what we did in our long weekend. We still have a lot left to do!

To Do list:

-Mulch all the beds

-Prep for our garden

-Trim down tree on East side of shed

-Stain the deck (we have started work on this)

-Paint the railing on the front of the house (this needs to be done before the bushes get too big)

-Perhaps put a patio off the deck

We have made a lot of progress, but have a ways to go before we are spring ready!