Goodbye bushes!

Before- with bushes

Since we moved in to our house, I have been saying that the bushes were not going to stay. I hate them. I don't even know WHY I hate them, but I do. I think part of it is the fact it's two and three, not three and three, not two and two. The sides don't match, and that bugs me. They also don't grow evenly, so there is no hope of shaping them into similar looking bushes. So last week I got some money from my awesome family for my birthday, and they kept saying "use it for something you REALLY want!" and after thinking about it, I'm going to use it to get some flowers for the flower beds! But before I can really even start planning those flowers, the bushes had to go. So today, they did! The front of our house is now bush-free!

I'll be the first to admit that after so much time with the bushes, the house looks REALLY WEIRD without them. Despite that, I am happy they are gone! Now the next step is to finish evening out the dirt on the right side and figure out how much topsoil we need to get to fill up the boxes. Then it's time to officially decide what will be planted. We are thinking we want some juniper right up against the house if it is something that can grow in partial sun. I would also like some creeping phlox towards the front of the flower beds- partially because those tend to drape and I think they would look SO pretty, and my parents have some in their yard and I love them. But neither of those are 100% what will be done. But hey! the 2nd step of the front flower beds is done! Flower beds built: check. Bushes gone: check. Next up: DIRT!

Flower bed number two!

For most people the 4th of July is a day for fireworks and cookouts and generally being lazy. Not so for Dork_syd and me! We are very lucky to have friends who were willing to come over on a holiday and help with the process of boxing in our flower beds. About a month ago the same friends came over and helped up with boxing in the first of the front flower beds- see the post about that here - this time the focus was on the right side as you look at our house.

This is a close up of the flower bed before ---->
we started working on it- even before we put mulched leaves down to help us visualize the size we wanted the flower bed to be. It's hard to tell from the picture but the side yard- and really the yard around the flower bed as a whole- slopes A LOT. Because of this the guys figured out the edge of this flower bed is going to have to be stair stepped because the top of the slope is higher than the front of the flower bed.  When they discovered that it slowed work down a bit because now not only did they have to dig out the basic trench that the landscape timbers would go in- they had to figure out the placement of the timbers and it proved to be a much more in depth process than it was for the first flower bed.

So between the heat and the difficulty of this side- and the fact that both of the guys had to work the next day they decided to make this flower bed a two-part process. Once they decided on that path they focused on figuring out and laying out the main frame work- cutting a minimal number of timbers since the measurements are likely to change once they are fastened down. When we gather for the finishing of the flower bed the guys just have to pull out all the timbers (explode them!) and work on drilling the holes for the re-bar support and nail them all down, cutting the timbers as they go.  I am very excited about the flower beds! Even not finished the front of the house is looking better and better!

After the flower beds are finished we will be working on pulling up the bushes since one of them is not there at all any more (it's asymmetrical -ARG!)and because the way they are growing I can't even trim them all to look the same without making the ones on the right bring to mind Charlie Brown's Christmas tree. We will then be looking into getting dirt/top soil to fill in the flower beds and the holes make from the roots. Planting will not happen until the spring most likely. We haven't 100% finalized what we're going to put in the flower beds but we're thinking of focusing on spreading plants, Dork_Syd would really like to put in some juniper bushes (which I'm good with) and I would like to put in some phlox. My parents have them and when they are in bloom they tend to grow over into their ditch and I think it would be really pretty to have them draping over the front of the flower beds. We'll see- we can always move the plants to a different location if we end up not liking them in those flower beds :-)

Flower bed #1- boxing complete!

This past Saturday the Hubby and I had friends over and the men were able to box in the first of the flower beds in the front!!!!

Before the front of the house/flower bed looked like this...

Now, after 4-5 hours of hard work and approximately 20 landscape timbers the front looks like this: 

Already the front looks so much cleaner, and that is only one side! We're hoping in the next couple weekends we'll be able to get the other side boxed in as well. We already have all the timbers, re-bar and nails. Once we do that we'll be checking with the HOA to find out of the paint takes care of the rule that we have to have the bricks in the front covered. If so, we're going to go ahead and take out the box-woods, since they aren't even- and we just dislike how they look. After that we'll be looking into buying a truckload full of topsoil to fill up the boxes before we plant anything else. We're still debating what plants we'll get- that also largely depends on what the HOA says. No matter what the box-woods will be coming up at some point. 

We also hung up the hammock that my boss was kind enough to give me since she no longer uses it. 

Unfortunately, it's sprinkling so I wasn't able to used it right away. However, I was able to lay on it briefly.  which gave me a lovely view of our trees covered in cicadas.  This has been a good weekend!