*Ignore the giant ruts in the yard...those are courtesy of the truck and dump trailer.
We got up before 7 (Thanks Abby! We didn't want to sleep in on the weekend anyways), and headed over to the mulch place. We filled the entire dump trailer (9 whole yards of mulch), made a quick stop at Menards for a few more supplies, and headed home to get to work. Luckily, since Abby had us up at 7, she was tired by the time we got home so I laid her down for nap and Ryan and I got to work.
The half dead tree below is actually a beautiful smoke bush. It was planted really close to the house (where the shovels are above) and we moved it out to this bed. We aren't sure if it's going to make it, but here's hoping!
Looks so much better right? I've said all along that I feel so bad for short sale and foreclosure houses. They just need someone to love them again! Our house was no different. I don't think anyone had mulched in probably 5 years. You could see landscaping fabric everywhere. The weeds are out of control and the plants seem very haphazard. But it's amazing how far a little bit of love, a lot of work, and a few hundred dollars in mulch can go!
We weren't sure how far the mulch would go but we were happily surprised that we were able to get both the front and back yard beds done. We still want to mulch along the sides of our fence (where the dogs run and get muddy in the spring/fall) and around our trees but we've decided we will hold off on that til next year and call our mulching days done for now.
Wanna see just how much mulch 9 yards is? Imagine this whole truck filled to the brim. It's hard to see at this angle, buy I couldn't resist a picture of my man shirtless!
There's a better picture of the truck, and just how much mulch we moved in one day. By this time, Abby was awake (she'd given us 2 and a half hours of uninterrupted work though!), so I was less on mulch duty and more on play with Abby duty so I was able to snap a few pictures.
My little lilac bushes look so sad here! We plan to go back and fill in with some more plants/flowers here in the coming weeks, but for now we are just happy that we don't see a single shred of landscaping fabric anywhere!
Oh, and, I figured I'd toss in a picture of my garden for you guys. So, to give you some perspective, I'm standing on the deck just off our kitchen, looking to the West. The building on the left is our gazebo/3 season room. There's this awkward little area between the gazebo and the house that was filled with rocks. We hated it!! We shoveled out the rocks and have laid down grass seed to try and turn that back into yard. We'll probably plant a few plants there but just plain grass will make a huge difference.
You can see I've got two large garden areas (already planted with peas, beans, onions, tomatoes, beets, carrots, and spinach. The raised bed is my strawberry garden. I can't wait til next year when I can finally let them blossom and grow berries. Then (it's pretty hard to see here) but if you look towards the back of the picture (to the right of the flag) you'll see a dirt row. That's where my asparagus is planted. Yup, 40 feet of asparagus. Two more years until we can eat it...but I'm already counting down the days. The last thing you can't see from this picture is my raspberry patch. It's in the far left corner of the yard (if you could see through the gazebo you'd see it). Can't wait til it's harvest time!!!
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