We Have Stones

Yes, that title could mean anything. Thankfully, it's not gall or kidney of which I speak :)

No, I am talking about landscaping. In a  few weeks, we will have been in our house for ten years. That alone blows my mind since a couple of years ago I realized that I have been in this house longer than I was ever in one place in my life.

Our front yard has been through many many transformations over the years. I tried to dig up some old pictures for this post but came up short unfortunately. It has gotten me thinking about the changes though.

At this time last year, I had just started my second job with hopes of trying to get our house out of foreclosure (which we did thankfully) but the entire year before that I had done absolutely NOTHING to our yard, either in landscaping OR maintenance because I thought we were going to lose the house.

So this year when we had that warm stretch a month or so ago, I realized that I have 2 to 3 years of no yard care to make up for. Not a small task I must say. But actually, a fun one.

(Left side before stones)

(Left side after stones)

It will look much prettier after the hydrangea and lilac bushes are in full bloom but you get the idea







I love working in the yard. I love getting dirty knowing that the end result is going to be amazingly different and make me feel good when I look outside. Each year for my birthday, my parents take me to a local flower store and we get some flowers or shrubs for my yard. Some things have taken to the ground well and others have had to be replaced.  But the one thing I haven't been able to do is follow up on the flora with any kind of actual landscaping. A few years ago, I did manage to get some paver blocks to put around our front and the tree, and then a couple of years ago I redid that area to make it bigger. But trying to keep a huge area of dirt weed free gets to be a huge task and by mid summer I end up giving up when it gets out of control.

This is the reason I was ecstatic when my neighbor met me at my car last week, announcing that she was going to kill off her lawn, pull out her shrubs and start from scratch. Through the process, they were going to get rid of the MANY stones they had around their bushes and asked me if I wanted them.


Less than an hour later, I had donned my "play clothes", gloves, and the wheelbarrow and together with my neighbor and her significant other, we went to work.

It was probably a little over two hours later when we were finished with my front and the boys were happily sitting outside watching them use a borrowed truck to pull out her bushes one by one. You'd think it was major attraction with how fascinated the boys were by the process. Okay, I admit it....I enjoyed the show as well :)

(Here is the right side where Noah went to work pulling out the weeds that were coming up and the leftover phlox that never quite took)

I have to admit that this picture doesn't do the "after" look justice since all the rocks were still wet. It looks great now though









So now I have stones and hopefully will be able to keep the weed population at bay this summer. I think I am getting greedy now and kind of wishing for some kind of fun ornament to put in the big open space on the right. The boys think I need gnomes like in Gnomeo and Juliet. I'm not sure but it just may be what we will be searching for on my birthday excursion this year :)

Have a great weekend!