Yard Changes!

Though I don't have pictures of everything, we are doing a bit of landscaping in the yard this spring... trying to make things look a little more "put together" and add some plantings. We are now on year 3 of living in this house and I've learned a bit about where things do and do not grow in my yard. Namely, the areas that were beds around the edge of the yard that looked lovely for growing things actually do not get sun! Like, barely at all. Hmm... tried planting veggies there the first spring, sort of tried a second spring and pretty much gave up the third year. So, this year, a shade garden is going to join the edge of the yard... including some more permanent, shrub type plants.

Also, our front yard has been a lovely expanse of mossy grass. I've managed to kill the dandelions so it stays pretty green but it is BORING! And it provides no privacy from the street. I added a few things but, this year, I decided that it needed to be a little more dramatic. So, a few weeks ago, Chet and I started tearing up grass so make front beds. Eventually, it will go across the whole hill in the front but we at least have the part adjacent to the fence all fixed up. I'm so excited for flowers to start growing!

The big, big change of today was our dogwood tree was taken out of its misery. Below was the tree when it looked healthy in May while is was blooming a few years ago.

We took out the other one to build some terraced beds a couple years ago... it was rotten and totally water soaked. We thought this one looked okay. Hmm... till we had it officially looked at by an arborist this spring. Every year, the tree starts to lose its leaves about a month after it blooms and continues to lose them till it looks scrawny and pathetic at the end of the summer. Such a pain! Well, we found out that we could spray the tree multiple times a year for the sum of $150 per year in order to keep it looking sort of okay. And that wouldn't fix the extensive rot in the roots and core of the tree. Hmm... what to do especially as it doesn't appear we'll be moving any time soon. So we decided to say "goodbye" to the dogwood to make room for something more disease resistant and healthy! Maybe a pretty maple that turns bright red in the fall? Any other ideas?

Here is our friend taking down our tree! Strange to have it gone but definitely a good decision to get rid of it... as soon as he cut into it, water started just dripping from each cut! The tree was saturated as well as rotting from the inside out.

Now all we have is a stump for Chet (and maybe a few friends) to muscle out of the ground. Oh, and no privacy from our neighbor's yard! Luckily, they are nice folks... but it will be nice to get a new tree in there soon.

We're excited to see what these changes look like as things start to grow this year... and to get to enjoy a beautiful, relaxing yard all summer long. :)