Curb Appeal

So up until recently I've been working mostly on my backyard and not very much on the front.  But it's the front yard that everyone else actually sees, so I decided to jump on adding some curb appeal during my week off.  One area that has always bugged me is the lawn to the West of my driveway as it is 90% weeds and 10% dead grass (not attractive) so I decided to take at least one step towards fixing that.  My mailbox area was of the same story, so I figured I could just dig it all up and replace the weeds with a flower garden to make it look a lot better, and I wouldn't have to mow that pointless little area (BONUS!).

I wish I had taken a before picture, but just know that it looked exactly like the area directly above it in most of these pictures, plus a baby tree growing in front of my mailbox.

At first I dug up all the weeds and just tilled the Earth and was planning on leaving it like that for the sake of simplicity.

Wasn't going to cut it

But after sleeping on it I realized that just a few more steps would mean a lot less headaches (weeds) in the future, so it was worth it to put in the extra effort.  I dug up several inches of dirt and roots from my neighbor's tree.  Here you can see the edger I put into the ground to prevent grass and weeds from creeping into the new flower bed.

The next step is a little weird and caught the attention of my mailwoman, but I've tried it in my backyard and it works very well.  Newspapers when wet and covered work just as well as landscaping fabric at blocking existing weeds or grass from growing out of any leftover roots.  AND newspapers will eventually decompose into the earth.  This won't prevent me from ever having weeds, but if I left any grassroots or weed roots in there they won't be growing back.

After that I got some free compost from the landfill which you can read more about here.  I filled my entire truck and it was barely enough!

After throwing that in and making sure the middle was slightly raised from the edges to ensure proper drainage, I covered it with mulch before deciding what to plant in it.

Even without plants the curb appeal is already much better!!

Free Compost in Lincoln

Now this was my greatest discovery of the past week, and I owe it to the Crowder family for telling me about it.  You can get free compost (and great compost at that) from the city landfill at the 48th Street Transfer Station.  Now I wasn't able to confirm this online on the landfill's website, but it exists!  It's sort of annoying that they don't mention it online because it's a great service.  So that's why I'm mentioning it now to hopefully help some other curious person who doesn't want to pay for dirt.  When I went there they gave me a brochure with some information so I'll let their words explain it for you:

Just bring a shovel and get to work!

It's that time of year!

As my neighborhood Ace puts together their Garden Center I just keep getting more and more excited to spend some time outside, Spring is HERE!

... I hope...
I mean, we've had mother nature fool us a couple times already so I'm proceeding with some caution here...

But warm weather does mean I can get back out into the backyard and continue to improve on my flower bed and create a warm, inviting back patio where I will likely spend most of my summer grilling and relaxing away.  Unless of course it's like last summer and it's over 100 degrees everyday, in which case I'll likely be inside in the air conditioning...

And now for an update!

Last summer I neglected my backyard due to the drought and the heat, and I developed quite the crab grass problem in the center of my flower bed.  Not really knowing how to get rid of it, I dug up all of it including a lot of dirt (I didn't want to leave any roots in there) and replaced it with some new top soil just the other day.

There'a a beautiful view of the crab grass from last year

And there lies my problem. No mulch invites crab grass

It has taken me two whole summers to realize that I need to have my entire flower bed well covered with mulch throughout the entire season to prevent weeds, so that is something I hope to keep on top of this year.  I also tried something new when I replaced the soil.  I put down several layers of newspaper in the area that I had dug up as I have heard it prevents weeds from growing by acting a lot like landscape fabric.  I then covered it with just about an inch of soil and then with mulch, so I'll be reporting on whether or not that works.

Also, the crab grass sort of killed out a lot of the plants I had in the center of my flower bed so I'll need to add quite a few more plants this summer.  Another thing I've read is that if there is no room for weeds, there won't be any weeds... So I plan on packing the flowers in quite a bit this spring.

Stay tuned!

It's That Time of Year Again...

Yes, that's right the blog is back!  And I was so addicted to growing things, that in the winter when my garden was on hold I grew this bad boy!

Oh Yea!

Alright, as cool as beards are lets get back to the garden... I realize now that I completely neglected posting pictures of my garden as it grew the rest of the summer last year (perhaps mostly because I didn't weed it nearly enough, oops), but now I can't help but show how much bigger the plants are!

Just look at that butterfly bush! 

These things are pretty cool!

Another view to show the size of the butterfly bush 

One of the new guys!

Close up on a hummingbird flower

And the white one as well

Just compared to my last post which was 11 months ago there is a night and day difference, so I can't wait to see how much the garden grows this summer.  As you can see, one of the plants grew very large (the butterfly bush in the smaller garden) and many of the others are a lot bigger than they were even at the end of last summer.  In fact those tall plants with the bell shaped flowers didn't even bloom last year, so this year they were quite the surprise!

However, there is some bad news... a couple of the plants didn't quite make it and aren't back this year.  About 3 have left some gaps in the bigger garden, and none of the plants up front survived. :/  But, I planted some seeds of lavender in one of the bigger gaps in the big garden so we'll see if that sprouts up at all.   I've never tried to plant with seeds yet!  And I got some hostas for the front of the house so those should do very well as it's a pretty shaded area.  Also filling up some of the gaps are some little guys that have sprouted up from the seeds of one of the taller flowers I have, you can see a picture of one of them above.  There are a TON of them!

Side of the backyard along the fence

WAY back of the backyard

All of the trees taking over... 

Hopeful site of a raised vegetable garden!

There are still a lot of projects I never got around to from last year that I hopefully will be able to complete this summer, as well as some new projects to do!  As you can see from one of the pictures above, I hope to create a raised vegetable garden in the corner of my yard near my peonies.  Also, I would like to dress up the side of my yard shown in one of the other pictures above.  Possibly just plant some hostas and whatnot as it is a very shaded area, maybe find some colorful plants that thrive in the shade.  One of the bigger projects this summer will be to clear out the area in the far back of my backyard as right now it is just storage of the dead trees and the bush I cut up last year and has been overgrown by trees as well.  Hopefully I can clear all of that out and plant some things that will thrive in that shady area as well.

Inspiration for my pergola

Obviously the biggest project yet to be completed is the pergola/lattice structure/umbrella/shelter/whatever I have promised in the past.... As much as this project has changed should show how indecisive I am in what I want to put up as a structure over the patio.  But I had a stroke of genius/inspiration not too long ago and now I think I know what I WANT to do, so we'll see if this actually happens.  What I have envisioned is a pergola that is open around the edges (like a regular pergola) so the vine I have can grow around the wood and create some shade.  But in the middle I would want to do some sort of rain shelter, so I would put some sort of bamboo shade up with a clear corrugated plastic over the top of it to create a cheap roof that would still provide both rain protection and shade.  I should have scanned my drawing of said structure, but I posted a picture of my inspiration for it.

So what should you look forward to seeing in future posts???
- Pictures of my plants as they bloom later in the summer
- Perhaps some pictures of the hostas in the front of the house
- The cleaning out of the far back of the backyard
- Maybe some new plants along the fence
- VEGETABLE GARDEN!! (I'm excited about that one.  Can't wait to grow some peppers!)
- And maybe, just maybe... FINALLY a post about a pergola going up... but we'll see.  I need some $$$$ first.

Adieu.

Much Needed Update (furniture edition)

Oh Yeah babe.

Flowers are a-bloomin!

Forgot the pillows.... :P

Here's the whole set visible

Just to let you guys see the night ambiance...

The firepot is probably my fav.

Close up of the awesome stepping stones!

No more blank wall!!

    Alright!  Well... it's been awhile since I last blogged about the yard and it's progress.  Many of you have seen it already, but for those of you who haven't I thought I'd give you an update.  Thanks to THE Mike Anderson, I now have some patio furniture. (Hell yeah Craigslist! :])  It's a very nice set too and I'm really pleased with it!  Mike was a very nice guy too.  Also, I went out and splurged a little bit on cool stuff like torches and some path lights, and a FIREPOT!  It burns gel, so it's pretty sweet.  I'm not sure if I ever updated about the giant stumps I got for seating around the fire pit, but they are noticeable in a few of these pics.  What else is there?  Oh yea, I just installed the lattice on the wall.  It definitely looks a lot better than a plain white wall.  And there are some vines already growing their way up.
    I've had to do a few complete overhauls on the two garden spaces to get weeds out of 'em, but I think they're pretty set for now... The plants are doing pretty well as you can see from a few of the pictures!  They are no longer little babies.  BUT, I am not done with this project yet!  Oh yes, there will be more to come this summer! Bwahahahaha! *ehm...*

My future plans include:
-Making a lattice structure that covers (and shades) the loveseat.  There is a vine growing next to it that will help cover it very nicely.
-Probably getting an umbrella to help shade the rest of the seats.
-Also, potentially making a nice little garden area along the back fence by clearing out all the junk that is back there now.

I know, you might be thinking... "Logan! What about the pergola??" or... "What about that gazebo idea?"  Nope and Nope.  I have decided to make a SMALL covering.  This way I get the best of both worlds.  A nice firm structure that has the ability of sporting vines.  AND the nice full sun coverage of a canopy.  In this case, an umbrella.  It's genius, I know.  I'm happy about it.  I'll probably start the lattice structure soon, as that vine needs something to cling to quick.  Soooooo, STAY TUNED! :]]

Finished Fire Pit!!!!

Oh yea!  Finished off the fire pit the other day and also got some MASSIVE stumps for sitting, and made a little bench.  All seating options were free, which is the best part of all. :]  I still wouldn't call this entire project "finished" per se, but it's definitely 100% usable now!  I'm still debating on whether or not I want to do like a rock/stone paving all the way around the fire pit...  But for now it'll stay like this and I'll focus on getting some solar powered lights to line the path with and possibly some stepping stones going through the path as well.

Many more things to come! ... But it might be break time before I begin on any of those other projects.  Running low on energy and draining my wallet... :P

HOLY STORM!?

Bracing my babies for the storm.... If we get a tornado I'm gonna be pissed!!