Backyard improvements

Ben and I have steadily been brainstorming how to improve the landscaping situation in our backyard. When we bought our house it wasn't BAD, it just wasn't our style. There were lots and lots of rose bushes which were beautiful, but completely impractical for our young, rambunctious, stumble-trip-stumble-trip boys. So, we have slowly been pulling out rose bushes and this spring decided to make some bigger changes. Ben worked really hard and very quickly at this project and for that I'm very grateful!

Check out our compost - it looks so lovely with some of the plants we had to pull out to accommodate our new plan. I took this photo days ago and I looked at the compost this morning and the plants are actually growing in there.


Here's a look at how our landscaping in the back used to look.


And here it is now! It may not look like a huge change, but it is, believe me. Now, when you open the gate into the backyard, you'll walk on grass, not mulch and stepping stones. Plus, we have more grass, which compared with the mulched-wasteland that used to be there, is a huge improvement!


And this is what it used to look like around our deck - notice all the non-grass mulch area.


And here it is now, with a nice green carpet of grass for the boys to shake all their sandbox sand off in!


And, one area that needed and continues to need some love is along the north side of our house in the backyard. This is the perfect spot for a shade garden. The previous owner of our house planted the hostas, but didn't use any landscaping stones to delineate between the grass and the landscaping or tie it into the rest of landscaping. So, we put these extra stones over here and now we need to work at caring for this somewhat new space.