Landscaping Weekend

When we bought our house, the listing stated that they had updated the landscaping. If you look at the before pictures below, you can see how comical this statement is.  Most of our neighbors are a little older and they love boxy shrubs, something we don't.




This is our front yard in the listing photos.


Another listing photo.  We actually pulled up the trees on either side of the doorway the weekend after we moved in.

So one Friday night, I announced that we needed to do something about our embarrassing front yard.  

Before we could change our minds, we took a few more before pictures and then pulled up our old landscaping.  

This forced us to get up the next morning and get to work.  A few months back, we had a landscaper come over and make a plan for the front yard.  We headed to his nursery and bought all the plants (we only replaced a couple just because we weren't fans of it, but having his plan was a perfect starting point.  Henderson and I are both a little indecisive when it comes to certain items.)  I can't remember the number but I believe we bought over 25 plants and had to load them all in my car since Henderson's truck had a pallet of Colorado River Rock.

We grabbed our respective work gloves and went to work!

Our first step was putting down new edging.  We bought new pavers at Walmart, they were my favorite and a much better value than any at Lowe's or Home Depot.  After laying the pavers just so, we grabbed some landscaping fabric and went to town.  The above picture is after the pavers and fabric are down.  

Next was the river rock.  The rock helps with drainage (since we don't have gutters yet) and with bugs from the mulch.  Plus it adds some dimension to the landscaping.  

Finally time to plant!  But first we laid out all the pots to make sure we were happy with where everything was going.  

While Henderson was picking up some stuff at Lowe's, I put together the above area with a couple of hanging baskets in a cute carriage I got at Canton's First Monday.  

All planted!  It took us most of Saturday and Sunday afternoon.  At this point, we could care less about mulch!

But it had to be done!  Mulching happened Monday night.

After pictures!

Our pretty hydrangea bushes.  

The first hydrangeas form our garden.

Henderson and I kept saying we were building sweat equity with our landscaping project.  It was exhausting and it took all weekend, but it was definitely worth it!  I love how it turned out!  Next on our home improvement list was new sod.  Post coming soon!