Landscaping Project: our front yard

Ready for a little before and after?  Here we go!

This is the house when we first bought it.  Pay particular note to the immediate foreground of the picture (look for headstones, weeds, and dead spindly things), the "beds" along the front of the house, and the far left of the picture.

It's hard to tell here, but the weeds/dead stuff/headstones in the immediate foreground are on  top of a raised up mound running the length of our front yard.  The mound acts as a physical barrier separating our front yard from the road, which is great.  It's just that the weeds/dead stuff/headstones had to go. 

So two summers ago, when we first moved in, we planted four pine trees along the far left of the above picture, or right in the open space at the foreground of the following picture, which is our property line on that side of the front yard. So, let's say... 30 years from now, it will be a GREAT privacy barrier! We love us some trees though, so we went for it even though we most likely won't still be here to enjoy them in their maturity.

Here's another picture to show you a close up of a bed.  This particular one is in the back of the house and did not get to participate in this year's bark transformation (See reasons here and here.)  But you get the idea in looking at this picture exactly what the beds on the front of the house as well as the mound used to look like (although the headstones and dead things have already been removed from this bed...):

Fast forward one year: after twelve a couple coats of Round-Up and still insane amounts of weeds on the "mound", we went through one more round of it, went back and bought some more concentrate, then did it again.  Then we decided we had to take matters into our own hands. We waited for what was going to die to do so, then borrowed a rototiller and went to town on the thing.  Then we unloaded two pickup loads of topsoil on top of what was already there, then rototilled it again.  Enter 28 rose bushes to create a (future) hedge along the front and down the side in between the trees we had planted the year before.

And that brings us to this summer.  We wanted to put some bark or mulch or something in all the beds and around the roses last year, but after the expense of the roses, bark was going to be too much cost for one summer.


Enter now:

This is what the beds look like now.  This one has three burning bushes spaced out in it; this one closest to the lens is one we rescued from the weed/dead stuff/headstone mound in the front and transplanted.  We purchased two more this year to balance it out. 

 

Here's a view from on the other side of the yard. Straight across is my car parked in the driveway. This shows one of the pine trees we planted two years ago, the burning bushes, and an arborvitae we planted this year along the side of the house. 

This one is along the side of the house and yard where there was nothing two years ago.  It's very early Spring here still, so the roses are hard to see among all the bark (look closely!).  And yes, we're trespassing in our neighbor's yard to take this picture.  Shhhh!

 

This is the view opposite of the last picture.  This tree is a plum which was here when we moved in. 

  

Here's a close-up of one of the rose bushes, as well as the neighbors' cars :)

This one shows all six of the arborvitae, as well as two of the four pines and seven of the roses for this side of the "wall".

 

Ok, not sre why this one is uploading on its side, but it is what it is.  This is something new for us this year, trying to keep weeds out and things that are supposed to be there from dying: soaker hoses snaked through all the trees and bushes, buried under the bark.  This picture shows two ends we've left exposed so we can find them when it's time to hook up the hose for watering that section. :)

Ahhhh, evening after a hard day's work.

Have a great weekend!