Landscraping 1

When we moved into our house 7 years ago, the contractor had planted some weasly little boxwood shrubs by the front porch. I didn’t like them. We purchased some mock orange shrubs at Underwood nursery and put those in. For the first couple of years, they were really nice shrubs: bright, shiny, evergreen leaves that started out in a beautiful shade of spring green, changing to a deep forest as the leaves matured. The shrubs grew quickly and filled the bed with mounds of foliage. The only problem is that they didn’t quit growing. They spilled over both sides of the bed, and when I’d try to prune them back, the bare hollowness of the shrubs’ innards would show. The longer I waited, the more I realized that something was going to have to give. And so in a moment of inspiration last week, Isaac and I pulled those shrubs out.

Now 8 trim little gardenia bushes have taken up residence in those same spots. Daddy and Isaac planted them nicely, fertilized them, watered them, mulched them, and then stood back to admire our handiwork. Isaac chirped, “We did a good job, daddy!” as he dusted off his hands. Come the summer months (next year if not this), we’ll enjoy the fragrant fruit of our labors.

As is often the case with most spring projects, there was a kind of cascading result: 4 hanging flower baskets, petunias for the flower beds, bags of mulch, plenty of raking, plenty of sweeping, and more fertilizing. Then inspiration hit for us to finally find a solution for the awfulness that is our back yard. The contractor who built our home did a slipshod job of grading the back hill and providing for adequate erosion control, and so now we have a royal mess on our hands. Bless her heart, Camille purposed to do it herself if that’s what it took, but I hate to see what will be hard work on her part go completely to waste. It’s going to be a big job an expensive venture to fix, but our hope is to dig about 5 feet into the hill, build a 5-foot retaining wall to extend the usable portion of our yard, and even add a small potting shed for gardening tools, our lawn mower, and other garage flotsam.

Here’s what that back hill looks like now. I’ll keep posting pictures as the project progresses (Lord willing!).

Mar 30, 2008

• Posted by Grant
• 5 comments
• Projects

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