Busy weekend

We've been spending so much time outside working in our yard. The lady who lived here before us had a.........carefree approach to landscaping. When we moved in, there was a maple tree growing out of a crack in the driveway. John's Dad said she had the attitude that if the maple seed fell there and a tree grew, then it was meant to be (we cut it down the week we moved in). A lot of the trees are dead, dying or need heavy pruning. The entire woods and treeline is covered in invasive honeysuckle which chokes out all native woodland plants. We are slowly cutting/pulling it out. The yard itself is about 3 acres and the woods are another 2 acres.

When we bought the house, there were some issues with some trees planted too close to the house which were causing erosion issues. They are all gone, but now our house looks so naked. So we are slowly working on landscaping around the house itself. The deck of the house is on the south side, and the sun is brutal. So on Saturday we planted a new red oak tree on the south west corner of the house. And in 20 years, it might actually provide some shade:).



That isn't the best picture because the tree is green and everything else is too. Plus there's another small tree to the back and just to the left of it that takes away from the oak. Anyway, it's a nice sized tree and we are really happy with it. If I were to guess, I'd say it is 10 feet tall.

Next, John planted 3 hydrangea bushes for me. They are on the west side of the house which is the back of the house. There was absolutely nothing there before. We still need to mulch and kill the grass, etc.



On that corner of the house (left side of the pic), Mom gave me 6 nice sized ornamental grass clumps. They aren't really that tall yet, but will look really good soon. Well, as soon as we kill all the grass around them and mulch it. Right now they are just sort of planted out in the yard, and we can't mow behind them anymore, so the actual grass is about 2 feet tall. We'll get to that this summer sometime though. It will just be all mulch behind them once we get it the way we want it.

I also got my planter boxes near the garage filled with annuals Sunday and they are going to be so pretty once they grow a bit. John mowed the entire yard which took 4 hours on the riding mower. We pulled some invasive garlic mustard which is taking over parts of the yard. I worked in my hosta garden a bit, and we dug up some daffodils that were old and hadn't bloomed this year. I am going to replant them (space them out a bit, they were completely compacted) and fertilize. Hopefully they will do something next year.

Okay, one last picture. These just bloomed this week, but the rain and wind have pretty much already done them in. There are several poppies planted in a little garden near the driveway.