Landscaping Phase #2

Last I showed you our backyard was lookin like this…

I had told you about the installation of the new drainage and the removal of the hedges.  We were left with a yard o’ dirt.  Then I came home the other day and I walked outside to this…

Ahhh! New magnolias and sod!  I can’t explain our excitement.  Let me show you around…

Take it all in people!

This grass is soft, like the grass we had in NY.  It is awesome to have something that is pleasant to walk on barefoot!

As I mentioned before we used Horizon Landscaping and they did an amazing job!

They were actually still working when I got home around 7pm.  They did such an amazing job, and they even stuck around to tell me how we should be taking care of the new trees and sod.  They were such polite guys and we are really impressed with their work!

We love that we still have lots of space in the yard with the new trees, yet they still block the neighbors in the back.  We will soon have some other updates back here, stay tuned!

Oh and of course some before and afters…

Yardwork Yo (backyard edition)

It turns out our hedges…

…..are trees.

Justin looked them up and it turns out they aren’t bushes/hedges, they are suppose to be trees.  The people who lived here before us let them get overgrown.  Justin trimmed them back and freed up the bottom branches, it makes the yard feel a little bit bigger. Yay! We can use all the room we can get.

Since installing the screen we are unable to mow the lawn right up next to the the patio.  We also cannot use the weed wacker because it would hit the screen as well.  Our solution is to take the sod out next to the patio…

Charlie really wanted to keep the dirt patch.

We decided it would be best to make it a garden.  It solves all our mowing issues. So off we went to Lowe’s for gardening supplies.

We picked up plants for the garden..

We got two different dog friendly plants.  We really had to search for something that would be safe if the dogs were to eat it.  Zack is part cow, so we plan on him taking a taste at some point. The first plant we went with is a…

Yup, you guessed it a Sanchezia.  I really love this plant, dog safe and my two fav colors(green and yellow).  Next up we got…

A shrimp plant pachystachys of course.  This one is dog friendly and went well with our leafy sanchezia friend.  We also picked up a baby magnolia tree to add to the empty side of the yard.

And lastly we got 20 bags of red mulch.

From there I dug up and edged around the newly discovered trees in our backyard.

Once I was happy with the edging, I started dumping in the mulch.

with all the mulch in…

While I was mulching Justin was laying the garden fabric for the plants near the patio.

I then set the plants on top in the spots that I thought they should go.

I tried my best to get them as even as possible, I wanted to get the tape measure out and make sure they were all the same distance apart.  Justin said I was nuts and they looked good where they were.

From there we made slits in the fabric and dug into the soil to plant the sanchezia and pachystachys.

Boom they’re in! Time to add mulch!

We continued the garden fabric and mulch around the corner where we will eventually add a plant of some kind in the corner(possibly a small palm).

Then Justin dug a pretty decent hole and planted the magnolia tree.

And we were finished…

Feels like a whole new backyard!

Yardwork

Justin has been working extra hard on our lawn lately.  I swear we’re in a neighborhood competition for the best lawn that I don’t know about.  He has been outside 24/7 every weekend working away.  I will share what he has been up to so far.

He re-sodded the entire yard!  I came home one weekend to this.

Two pallets! I am going to let you in on a secret… our yard is not that big.  I was wondering if he would actually need this much sod and it turned out he used every piece.  He rented a huge tiller from Lowes.

Of course I took a picture of it. I also got a few pictures of Justin hard at work.

He did a great job, looks awesome.  He also dug out the stumps from the trees he cut down last week and planted this cute tree.

He wasn’t done there, he also dug two trenches that went out toward the corners of our yard. He added drain pipes that connected to our gutter drains off of our back patio.  He did this because when it rained we had a lake on our back patio.

He worked his butt off and the drain pipes worked well, it has rained since and we have no more lake! woo hoo!

I also added some flowers out back.

This stand was a gift from Sandy(love it) and the plant is a gift from Justin’s grandma.

I think the backyard is coming together.  Now it is safe for the dogs and pretty for us to look at.