Last week, Tuesday to be specific, we had some significant landscaping done at the 554. Earlier this spring, we consulted with a landscape designer who drew up a beautiful plan for us…that cost the same amount as say…my left arm. What we decided to do was to have the landscaping company dig all the beds that were in the plan. That, we figured, was the part we couldn’t do. We decided we could hunt for the right plants, follow the plan and put them in ourselves. A week later, I have to say that we made the right decision. The yard is coming together and it looks amazing.

Between last Tuesday and last Friday, however, we had some muddy mud pits in our back yard. We didn’t have the landscapers do the mulching so there was only top soil down…and some significant rain to boot. It was driving me a little insane. The mess was outside, on me, on the kids and in the house. Brian the ever “calmer downer” told me to just let it go. “They’re kids…and there is mud out there…let them play in it and keep your camera close by”. Friday morning, we had some good friends over to play. Karen and her kiddos left for naps around 1, but Lisa and her two boys hung around into the late afternoon. Good thing she’s easy going too…cause we had some messsssy kids!

Here are Adam, Logan and Mackenzie being “mud monsters”. Notice how the girl applied her mud nice and evenly…more like at a spa. The boys sort of rubbed it all over themselves and in their hair. This is the “good” picture…it got a LOT worse. At one point Adam was basically wearing a mud helmet.

The pool was originally designated as the “clean kids” zone where the water table was designated as the “wash yourself area”…the pool ended up as a mud pit. The playset also came under attack at one point. The kids were throwing mud balls at it.

Compared to later, this looks like super clean.

I’m not kidding…near the end, Logan had almost an entirely black face. But it was a one-time experience and, according to Logan, “such a super fun day mommy!”

So here are some of the landscaping pictures:

32 plants that Brian and I dug up before the work began. Most of these found homes in the new plan, but they all had to be moved so we figured we would take them out so that the beds would be formed correctly. You can’t tell here, but most of these are sitting in the large plastic baby pool.

The left side of the porch before the work was done after we had removed all the plants (hostas mostly)

Standing in front of the right side before the work (if you look closely, you can barely see the white outline in the ground where the new beds were dug)

This is the pile of sod that left the house. It filled up a huge dump truck. Our friend Joel called it the “VW beetle-sized pile of sod in front of your hosue”

A dump truck in my driveway…one of two that were there that day. We took over the whole street basically. 

This is the left side of the house. Here, there was previously a very straight and narrow bed with bushes…all of which were replanted (by me) up in the front section)

This is the left side of the house (lovely shadow of me again). There was nothing here before except the tiny section in the back where you see the grasses and the tree.

This is across the back of the yard. This part made me a total wreck…look how much of the lawn is gone! It’s so much better now that I fully understand the plan. We have a good deal of it started already after this past weekend. I also mowed for the first time this afternoon and WOW – it’s a breeze and takes 1/2 the time!!

Another freak-out…I didn’t realized from the plan that the bed would touch the play set. It’s OK though…they can still swing and literally NO one ever went back there anyway.

Here is the new right side (when you’re standing on the porch, stepping out of the house) of the porch and one of 2 new trees we had put in that day.

A view across the lawn: you can see the bed straight ahead on the edge of the property plus the new “left” side of the porch and the other tree. That particular tree is called a lilac standard. It’s a lilac bush grafted on to a tree trunk! We have two existing lilac bushes on either side of the back of the house and that will mirror them. It’s gonna get huge too (the top…not the bottom).

A view from the porch looking right. This area, as well as the front walk-way off the porch are supposed to have new paver path extensions to the existing patio in the same stone we already have. We think, however, that we are going to do stepping stones. The landscaper did stones off of the left side (I didn’t take pictures) and Brian did one off the front. We’re working on this area next.