To get started, we need a baseline. I have an idea of what I want to accomplish this year and I will lay it out for you with the pictures below.
You are obviously looking at the front of the house. When people come over, they have to walk out to the sidewalk, then back up the walkway in front of the house. At some point this summer, I will rip out some of the lawn and put a brick paver walkway in from the driveway to the front walkway. In the coming years I want to rip out the walkway and pave that area up to the concrete steps. I will most likely brick over the steps and stoop outside the front door.
These two pics of the front corner and side of the house show my grass. I am not sure what is happening, but we have huge patches of brown that I am starting to worry whether or not it will actually come back. May have been due to the snow being on the grass for months, or something else, but I really don't know. I have raked out some of the dead grass to give the soil some air, hopefully it will come back.
In the front corner we planted two new hydrangeas last year. One is definitely coming back, the other - not sure.
In the back, against the neighbors driveway, there are some 4x4 posts laying that edge out...nothing. All these things do is make me go around on the sidewalk and Ed's driveway to cut this little patch of grass. I took the timbers up yesterday.
This is obviously just off the deck. Its a rectangular patch of flowers and shrubs. I am going to wait to see what actually grows here to figure out what to plant. What I know will happen is that the ridiculously ugly small green bush in the middle will be ripped out.
What does one do with a concrete slab behind the garage? I have grand visions of building some sort of golf practice area with netting and pvc pipes to deliver hit balls right back to a hitting area. I'll let you know if Ali shares those visions, I assume she does not.
In the back, we have a few things going on including this lattice. It is there to provide privacy as Ed's main door to his house is right there. I think we will try to find some different flowing vines to at least ad some beauty to the random lattice. The best part of this picture is not the lattice, its not E-man, its the stupid tree/bush behind the lattice. Because of the lattice you can't see the tree - there is no point to it other than to make me mow around it. It will be coming out.
The next three pictures show what is between the deck and the garage. The short answer is some very overgrown shrubs, thin paver stones and timbers holding the steps falling down. Here is the plan: Rip out the shrubs along the garage and figure out some flowers and shrubs to replace - mix in new dirt if needed; put a few bags of pea gravel in between all of the paver stones to make it look a little fuller; decide what we want to do with the walls/steps next year. I can replace the timbers, use railroad ties or brick/rock them in. Whatever the choice, it would wrap around the entire deck.
The ripping out of the shrubs will hopefully commence in the next couple of days.
This little area is between our side door and the bedroom in back of the house. It currently has 4-5 rose bushes that had about three blooms on them last year. I will probably rip out the roses as I don't want to take the time to grow them. Maybe a bed full of impatiens?
I will keep you updated throughout the summer with new pictures as things happen. Give me suggestions if you think I should try something. If you can magically make my brown grass turn green, let me know, there will be cold beer in the fridge if you want to come over.
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