In A Gadda Da Vida

When Steven and I bought our new house in December, we knew the biggest challenge was going to be our big yard.  Judging by the landscaped flower beds and pots and trellises and trees and shrubs in just about every corner, nook, and cranny, we guessed that we might be getting in a little over our heads. I mean, neither one of us knows what to do with something like this…

Honestly, our first thought would be just to mow it all down and try to bag up the mess but we’re pretty sure there are a whole lot of plants and flowers buried under here, not to mention what appears to be a wagon wheel covered with brush and a thick layer of dead leaves.

Sadly, neither of us is much of a gardener. We know next to nothing about plants and trees and landscaping, and I doubt either one of us could correctly identify a weed if we actually saw one (with the exception of dandelions. Come on, we’re not complete flora morons). So, we figured we’d just start slow, raking and bagging as much as possible, to see what we could unearth. Of course, that prompted Steven to head directly to Lowe’s to buy some fancy gas-powered leaf sucker/blower/mulcher machine, which he was having fun with, right up until he realized that the amount of leaves we’d already raked into piles would keep him busy sucking and mulching until spring of 2013.

So, we both rolled up our sleeves and started raking and bagging the old fashioned way, and I have to say, we’ve made some pretty decent progress so far.

Here’s a bit of the front yard…

And the north side yard…

And the back yard and south side yard…

We still have quite a bit to go, but it’s amazing how quickly everything is blooming now that all the dead brush is being cleared away. We’ve got some new buds sprouting on the peach tree…

And trees and shrubs beginning to show their first signs of green…

We’ve got brightly-colored flowers beginning to bloom all around the yard…

And just look at what a difference a few days of warm sunshine can make. I took this first shot on Tuesday, March 6…

And this shot of the same tree on March 12…

I’ve gotta admit, it’s sort of fun stepping outside each morning and being surprised by something new and beautiful each time. And now that we’ve spent the past few days out in the yard clearing away the mountains of piled up fall leaves and seeing the first flowers of the season beginning to bloom, we’re getting sort of anxious to see what the rest of the spring and summer have in store for us. We know that we may not decide to keep it all (or be able to keep up with it all), but we figure after a season or two of seeing how things grow, we might be able to get a handle on it.

After three days of hard work and we’ve only begun to scratch the surface. At this point, the only thing we’re really bummed about is that we didn’t buy stock in biodegradable Lawn and Leaf Bags before we began…