Yard Facelift...

When My Sweety and I moved onto our place we had a vision of a yard full of green grass, colorful flower beds, full shade trees, and a place we would call home for a long time.  While working my fingers to the bone {with the help of my mother}, making a house a home; there were plenty of starts and stops for us.  A visit from Tropical Storm Debby put plenty on hold.  A visit to Virgina to meet my newest grand baby Jaycee and Daughter in Law Jamie, put home projects on home.  The injury to my right arm hindered plenty for us.  Then I took a trip to Chattanooga Tennessee ad brought my sister and niece back home. 

Once my sister was settled here, everything started to fall back into place.  It was back to the yard grind stone, and once again our vision took off.  Here is what we have been up too...

Because our dogs Tesla and Thorn find the best shade and the coolest place under our house, my sister and I had to put up a barrier point for them.  In short, we had to keep them from getting under the house, in order to keep them from stomping all over the Garden area.  This is where we knew we could fake them out.  See, our whole property is set up with an electric fence for the dogs.  Therefore, the equipment for an electric fence had to be put around the skirting of the house. 

Then edging design had to be placed.  The edging had to be moved, and removed, and moved a third time; until we had it just where we wanted it.  I could not wait to cover up the path way our dogs made in the yard.  See it there, from them walking in the same spot over and over again?  UGH.  Dogs.  So now we had the electric fence up, and the edging design down.  We were on a roll.

This picture just doesn't seem to do justice to the area.  Once we had it to this point.  My sister, and I moved plants into the area.  Trying to pin point where everything would go, and hoping there would be room to purchase more.

Man oh man did we have fun purchasing more plants.  Just what we wanted to, plants with color and height.  We started our plant shopping trip at Big Top Flea Market.  There wasn't a whole bunch there to get, so we finished our plant trip at Home Depot.  I think I could have bought a whole bunch of stuff, but my heart was racing with the thought of the amount of money we were spending.

When we got all the plants where we wanted them.  We called it a night.  It was so hot at Bit Top Flea Market, and standing in the garden center at Home Depot wasn't any better.  We were wore out. 

There was still the chore of tilling the soil and adding cow manure, then digging the finial resting place for all the plants.  Sounds simple right? 

Nope!!

My sweety wanted a rain barrel and my sister thought it was a good Idea, so did my mother soar that matter.  I however was against it.  I wasn't sure how it was going to look first of all, and second {and more importantly} it would attract frogs.  I lost as you can see, but when it all came together; the rain barrel make the garden look put together. 

Let me tell you about tilling the soil.  First we had to pull up the grass and weeds in the whole area, but we did this with shovels and rakes.  Than we used this thing my sweety picked up from his brother Georges house.  It has twisted blades on it and ran off of human power.  Yeah.  Force it in the ground and twist.  Boy were our arms sore.  Then we added the cow manure, and used the twisted thingy again to mix it in real good. 

The front garden looks wonderful!!!  Just take a look for yourself...

 



Looks great right?  Yeah.  I think so too. 

Lord, please 

PLEASE  

don't let me kill the garden.