Our (Now) Lovely Yard

I really wish I had a good "before" picture of our backyard. It had three years' worth of dead leaves stacked about two feet deep over a layer of hard-packed but dusty dirt. 

When we first moved in, Richard started tackling the depths of the leaves, one section at a time. He hauled away three FULL loads of leaves and general debris in the first few months. He also had eleven trees taken down in order to allow more sunlight to reach the ground and improve grass-growing conditions. 

Over the course of the summer and into late fall, he worked on clearing away the leaves and prepping the yard. He tilled and fertilized and seeded and weeded and loved the yard. And now we have lush, green grass to show for all of his hard work. It's a little patchy in areas, but Richard says that's because this is only the first pass at seeding that area. It will get better and better each year. 

Our front-yard tree, which also happens to be my favorite of our trees. 

We also now have a dog who loves LOVES the backyard. She likes to dig up a nice spot to lie down in. She likes to chomp on the grass and pinecones and sticks and any yard supplies left lying around. She likes to dig up potted plants. And she likes to run hard and make sharp turns in the soft ground. 

And for Lola, our sweet Lola, we recently had an invisible fence installed. It took a little getting used to on her part, but she knows her boundaries now. So we can now leave her outside unattended -- for short intervals, at least. 

How inviting, right?
Side note: that scraggly, sad azalea bush in the foreground? It's gone now.

Eno weather is the best weather.

Since the weather has been so nice the past few weeks, Richard has been able to make even more improvements. He just planted some vegetables along the back fence line (just on the other side of Lola's invisible line, so the most she can do is some insistent sniffing). He planted broccoli, cherry tomatoes, squash, cucumbers, bush beans, celery, bell peppers, sweet peppers, early girl tomatoes, and one jalapeño plant -- that one's mine :). 

We have small space between the last step from the deck and the edge of the driveway. We threw out a few ideas of what to fill it with (one clean line of bricks set in flush with the ground, mulch, stones, etc) and landed on getting a nice ground-cover plant to fill in that space. Richard found these little cuties and decided that they would be perfect since you can step on them, and the plant won't take over the yard (fingers crossed). 

We also have an awkward space where some of the asphalt chipped away and leaves us with a crooked missing chunk instead of a nice, clean line. We hope that the ground-cover will help disguise that area since repaving the driveway isn't currently in the budget (or even necessary anywhere else). 

Notice the cute, little helper off to the right of the photo.

Notice that adorable planter that says, "Erin." (That was going to be a question, but I changed it to a command to avoid the question-mark-inside-the-quotation-mark thing that tends to be confusing.) Richard made that for my birthday gift when we were first dating. I love it. :) And him. 

Well, that planter used to hold my basil and rosemary every year -- and some garlic that just stays unharvested. But now that the herbs have a new home (mentioned later), we decided to plant some of the leftover programs from our wedding. They were printed on biodegradable paper full of wildflower seeds. 

When he salvaged the wood to use for the farmhouse table, he also snagged a few intact items -- an old door, a "rustic" bench, an old trough/bathtub, and some other pieces. He put the old trough in our one, defined mulch bed under a tree close to the deck and used it as a planter for herbs! Yay! We've got basil, chives, rosemary, parsley, oregano, and garlic in that great big trough. 

And we have some mint, but it's in its own planter lest it take over the whole yard.