Sprucing Up the Yard

Butch and I have been planning a landscaping project at our house ever since we bought it a little over 1 year ago.  Our place is almost 30 years old but was mainly used as a rental property.  Now, we all know that some rental properties aren't necessarily kept up to the nicest standards.  Hence, the remodeling work on the inside of our house.  :)  This can also be said about our pitiful yard.  Like I said, the house is almost 30 years old and it doesn't have ANY MATURE plants on it!  The tallest trees were planted probably within the past 5 years or so and they're about 12-15 feet tall.  So, we knew we had to do something to spruce up the old girl!

I want to show you a picture of what it looked like before we started:

A little pitiful right?!  We had lots of work ahead of us!  You can click on each picture to see a close-up.

I now have to give you some random background information to help you understand how we accomplished the work.  :)  To make a long story short, Butch and I volunteers with YoungLife.  We'll be some of the leaders going to camp this summer with the kids.  The organization's leaders had previously raised money for the youth to go, but they had to volunteer their time to work for some of that money.  So, we had 10 free workers come out to our house to help us (12 including Butch and myself)!

They did an AMAZING job!  They were such a blessing to us in working quickly and efficiently.  We never had to talk to them about getting back to work especially in the heat!  We just can't stop bragging about the wonderful youth who came out to work!  Thank you guys!

Here are the YoungLife kids who came out:

 Here are the 2 trailers full of mulch and plants:

 Here's a close-up of both:

We had to line-up and place the plants where we wanted them.  We bought perennials because I'm not a natural gardener.  I don't want to plant new plants EVERY year.  These plants will also spread out as they mature to cover more ground which was important to us.

The kids got to work right away.  Mulching various trees on our property while others started planting all of the plants.

We were not slave-drivers!  We made sure the kids took plenty of breaks.

 

Can you find Butch in this picture?  I'll give you a clue: look for his head!  Poor guy was working so hard!

 

 Here's the before & after picture of the front:

the rest of the front:

 the before & after of the side of the house:

We still have more work to do in the back and the other side of the house, but at least it'll be easier to work with now!

 

 Here's the finished product in the front:

 

It took us 2 1/2 hours to finish!  We were blown away with how fast time went by!  Want to come and help us finish the job?!  We'll provide the snacks!  Share the love and let us know what you think.  ;)