Backyard Landscape Progress

Daisy was a little champ in the car for WAY too long while we picked up plants from the nursery which is a good drive from our house especially coming home with 450 pounds of plants loading the truck down.

Since we bought a new home in a new development they cut ALL trees down.  So sad.  So, we had nothing but a dirt lot when we moved in.  The first year Joey and I (mostly Joey) built our own fence (saves a lot of money but, dear goodness I NEVER want to do it again....so much work!!!).  The second fall we put in our own sod and now in our third year we are working on the plants.  We brought in (by ourselves) two 20 foot tall maples (400 pounds each) don't even ask how hard it was to get them from Joey's truck out front to the backyard....ridiculously heavy trees!!, two 400 pound holly trees that broke our $130 brand new wheelbarrow instantly...not fun and over 30 other plants to go around the trees. Here I was experimenting with the layout possibilities.  Daisy loved hanging out with the plants.  Seriously, loved it.  So cute to see her sitting so small amongst all the bushes.

one hour to dig a massive hole, 45 minutes to get the monster maple tree into the backyard and whalah...tree is in!

just 3 weeks later the tree has a bunch of leaves, the hubby tore out our sod, dug a million holes for the bushes and then we put 11 bags of mulch down on both the back left side of our yard and the back right.

Again, this is our BIG first step towards improving our backyard but, please know that we are not done (clearly by the looks of plants still in containers).  I want to plant flowers everywhere to add punches of color but, I am also going to plant a few hydrangea bushes in our backyard when we get around to it  The nursery that we go to is SO cheap (like 75% cheaper than a Lowe's or Home Depot!!) so we were able to enjoy the fruits of our labor a little this year in spite of all the set backs.  Stay tuned for phase 3 in the future;0.  OH and our grass is seasonal so it is brown late fall to late spring.  Almost green and boy am I ready to see it move on from the dead brown color!!  I have to give ALL credit to my hubby for 99% of the work that went into our backyard.  He worked his hiney off for hours and hours on end without complaining.  I could never have accomplished this without him.  I design and he does it all.  So thankful for him!