Out in the yard

We are in the beginning stages of our first growing season at our new yard. Thankfully, Ben and I both enjoy working in our yard and making it our own.

Sharon Boese created a wonderful landscape plan for us and last fall we planted two areas in the front of our house. This spring we wanted to finish planting around the rest of our house. 

 Earlier this spring I planted this area along the back of the house.

 Ben has continued to care for and watch over the grass growing in our yard. This picture was taken a little while ago, and by now there is even more green. We're still hopeful that we'll have enough grass in our yard to be able to use it this summer. To simply be able to walk from the patio onto grass would be lovely. So far our yard has been kept wet to encouraged the grass to sprout and grow and a yard of mud is no fun.

 It's been fun to watch the plants we planted last fall come back to life.

 Clearly, not all of them came back though...

 I took a day off from work a week or so ago to plant all these plants around the side of our house. On one hand, it doesn't look like that many plants, but in reality there were about 30 plants waiting for new homes.

The south side of our house before...

 and after! It'll be fun to see how they grow and fill in over time.

 Several of the plants I had to work with were actually perennial grasses and flowers that a friend let us chop/dig portions from.

 It's hard to see, but all the plants around our utility boxes in the back yard were free. I hope they grow nicely so we don't have such a clear view of the metal utility boxes all summer.

 Ben and I planted everything and mulched everything just in time for the boys to arrive home from school asking if we'd play baseball...sigh. It felt really good to have accomplished so much in one day, and thank goodness the boys were willing to give us a little break before the baseball game started.