Yard Plans: Update

This weekend Nathan and I spent Saturday outside!  Nathan has been planning on cooking a Boston Butt for months, and this Saturday he got to do it!  Nate is an AWESOME griller (is that what you call it?)  he only cooks on charcol, and I love it that way.  It took about 6 hrs to cook, but it was SO worth it!  We worked outside in the yard all while smelling that WONDERFUL smell.

We got the tree line prepared for the Azalea's by pushing back all the leaves that were at the edge of the yard, we got shovels and just threw them back and also trimmed some branches back that were way too low.  There are a lot of leaves back there, so Im thinking about starting a leaf compost pile to use for nutrients next year.  I dont know for sure if I will do it yet, but that would save a lot of $$ and there are a lot of nutirents in the decomposing leaves that the flowers and plants need.  I also got all the weeds up out of the flower beds and sprayed round up where I could.  Nathan raked up all the pine needles so we would be able to till up the beds and plant the new flowers and shrubs.

While Nathan was raking up the pine needles around the tree we came across our first snake!  It was a baby and it was sliver/grayish.  Nate chopped its head off!  I know your not supposed to kill snakes, especially black snakes, or garder snakes, but I HATE snakes, and if its alive and I see it, I want it DEAD!

We also marked off the lines for our new patio that will be built next year.  I had a can of black spraypaint and so we did our markings but I ran out so we had to use flour for hte rest of the lines.  I wanted to do this so I could kill the grass in these areas.  I love using round up.  I dont have the pre mixed kind either, its the concentrate with the pump tank/sprayer and everything!  Sunday when we came home from easter at Granny's the grass was already dying!  I love it!  :)

Thursday Nate and I are going to go to Kannapolis and plant shop with Nathans mom and dad, so we will have everything ready to go on Saturday!  Its almost time to plant, and I cant wait!

Oh another thing, I had an idea about my herb garden.  Do you think it would be pretty to do a container garden there?  I also want to plan some veggies like squash, zuchini, and peppers!  Any suggestions?!

this is the space in question!

Yard Plans

Im SOOOOOO excited about my yard!  I feel like a kid waiting on Christmas to get here!  Nathans parents and Granny came over Saturday for an early dinner and we went outside and planned out my landscaping.  Not this weekend but the next we are going to get it started!  So to continue our excitement after Nates family left, we went window shopping at Home Depot to see what kind of flowers, shrubs, etc we liked!  There were Japanese Maples near the front for 100.00 a peice, these are expensive trees, Im not really sure why, but they are.  I LOVE them too, they have beautiful red leaves!  So we were looking back in the back and I saw some small baby trees with no leaves on them and it looked like Japanese Maples and sure enough it was!  FOR 20.00!!!!  I made sure and ask if it was just because they were baby trees and not very mature yet and they said that was the reason for the low price, so we bought two!!! 

Here are my plans:

Front yard:  cut down the dead dogwood tree, thank God only 1 is dead, the other two are about to bloom!  Rip up the enormous bushes in the front yard. Plant a Japanese Maple somewhere in the front beds and some more bushes and flowers.  Not sure exactly on the rest yet.

Side of the house:  There are some mums there now, we may move them elsewhere, because this will be my herb/ veggie garden.  Im planning on planting rosemary, basil, oregano, dill, maybe some other spices and maybe tomato, jalapeno, squash, and zuchini.  Like I said, nothing is in stone yet, but this is what the plans are.  Im going to plant these there because its right off from the kitchen, so it will be easily accessed when Im cooking and in need of fresh herbs and veggies!



Patio Planning:  Patio pavers are really expensive so I have that project lined up for NEXT spring, but for now, Im going to go ahead and plant a screen around where the patio will be so next year there will be mature trees and shrubs there to provide more coverage.  Nates mom gave me some curly willow tree cuttings that I am rooting inside right now, they will probably go in this area along with bushes and ornamental tall grass and flowers.  I want to include some hydrangias throughout this also as well as in the back!  This week Im going to kill the grass there...this is one of my favorite things to do!  haha, dont ask me why, but Its just fun carrying around the pump and spraying every weed in sight! 

Back Corner and tree line:  I have snow drops, Iris, mums and some other things growing in the back corner of our lot, so in addition I will plant a couple hydrangia bushes back there  to be viewed from the patio!  Also along the tree line there will be azalea bushes.  Im buying the small bushes because they are cheaper, they wont look quite like I want them to this year because they are babies, but in a couple years they will be a beautiful boarder of color!




Okay these are the plans so far, when its all complete, Ill post pics of the after! btw...these pics were taken when we moved in  in the fall...those leaves are long gone, Nate would have a cow about that. He does so good with the yard, He's very excited about putting the fertilizer on it and getting it nice and green.  In the fall were planning on areating and also planting more grass seed!  One step at a time though....   :)

Spring = Flowers

Nathan and I bought our house in November, and from the moment we saw the house we loved it!  I remember coming back to our apartment after seeing this house for the first time and us both jumping around and doing the "happy dance".  (In case you dont know what the "happy dance" is, you pretty much just move your body any ridiculous way you can think of to show your enthusiasm and happiness about the situation at hand.)  I remember Nathan saying, "baby, this is the house God has for us."  When he said those words, I knew it was the one too, and as God would have it, it IS the house God had for us.  I could go on and on about our house searching and the things we learned, which were a LOT, and the things we hated, and loved, but this blog would be a book.  The house is perfect for us in many ways, and like all houses, there are things we immediatly changed, things we are changing, and then there is my LIST.  On the very top of my list is the yard.  Of course we have to wait until spring is fully sprung to start doing a lot of my honey dos, but this 70 degree weekend is making me itch to rip up some bushes!

These bushes have been #1 on my list since I laid eyes on them, and I cant tell you how bad I want to hook a chain up to them and just rip them up out of the ground, and if I have my way in it at all...I will be driving the truck when they come up!  I am falling in love with gardening, flowers, and landscaping.  Right now I know next to NOTHING about the subject, but I love learning new things about it so I think this is slowly becoming my new hobby.  The tree's in this picture are dogwoods, they might be dead, we should know in a couple more weeks when everything is in full bloom.  I really hope they are alive they will be so beautiful if they are Im sure.  This year I want to plant hydrangias, I think they are so beautiful,  and  yellow bell bushes.  I already have a camelia bush as you can see. It has made a baby right below it, so I will probably move the baby to another part of the house!  This bush is gorgeous, its been blooming all winter.  It will bloom and then it snowed, the flowers would die, but the next warm day there would be new buds sprouting out everywhere!  Im also planning on planting a curly willow, Nates mom has a beautiful tree at her house and we rooted and planted one in china grove that had started to grow nicley when we sold the house.

Also on my list is build a patio!  This can get rather expensive, so this year we are going to focus on the flowers beds and landscaping, and next year Im planning on tackling the patio, BUT, I want it to be surrounded by trees, flowers and shrubs, so I think I will plant some things near where I want the patio to be so there will already be some larger things around it! 

Since Im new at this whole gardeing/flower stuff, do you have any plants, trees, or shrubs you would like to suggest for me to try?!