Weekend project

Ben's parents and younger brother came up this weekend to visit us and meet Julie. Ben and his dad always seem to end up working on some kind of home improvement project whether they plan to or not. Ben had a few ideas up his sleeve at the beginning of the weekend, none of which panned out. I'm really excited about what they did decide to tackle, though.

This is the front of our house:

As you can see, the planter area is more than a little overgrown, and in serious need of clearing. The ground cover that previous residents put in is outrageous. We learned that it's called Japanese spurge, though we prefer to call it "scourge" instead. It had to come out. Besides all the normal stuff you find when you rip out a large chunk of unwanted yard (rocks, bricks, worms, bugs, etc.), we also found three baseballs and a chewed-up tennis ball.

Earlier this spring, I had daffodils come up (that I didn't know I had). They were the white variety, or white with orange/yellow centers. I don't really like that kind very much -- I really prefer the bright yellow ones. So they came up too. My mother-in-law is taking them home to plant in the Fall.

After the demolition derby in the front yard, we took a couple trips to Home Depot and a nursery, and redecorated. We trimmed the dead stems off the hydrangea plant from last Summer, moved an azalea and a rhododendron plant from the backyard up to the front, and condensed the columbine into one area in the planter (I had it in three different spots over three different planters).

Then we started planting the new stuff. I have hostas and salvias around the tree. I have asiatic lilies between the azalea and the rhodie.

I have red and white rose bushes where the giant dead ugly evergreen bush was.

I have petunias and verbenas planted throughout. I have cheery gerber daisies in the pot on my porch.

I have a beautifully sculpted new line of rocks creating a barrier between the grass and the planter. And we've laid down grass seed to lengthen out our lawn. The grass will go all the way up to the rock line.
We cut back the bushes growing on the left side of the tree.

These are all the bags we filled up with debris. We need to get more still!

Thank you so much Brian, Darcy, and Ben! The yard looks so much nicer now!