{The House} Front and Side Yard Clean Up

Who doesn't love a good before and after? This one is mostly a time and weather issue but I did have to go in and clean up a bunch of the overgrowth I allow to stay for the winter months. Why do I do it? Because it provides food (flower seeds), shelter, and nutrition for the ground. Once I see bugs moving around, I'll clean it up and send some off to the local landfill (yard waste only). Some goes into my own compost. 

Among the pretty growth of my perennial flowers, you'll notice the switch of pots. I took all my blue pots and grouped them on my back patio. These two matching pots look nice here with the arbor and then I added some new white and black pots for my front porch. I'll do a separate post for it as it still needs some work. 

Unfortunately after I took this photo, we had a hard freeze so I'm not sure how my sweet potato vines are doing. I may replace them this weekend if they don't perk back up tody and toorrow with the warmer weather. I cut off the brown leaves and they aren't completely dead yet. The rest is looking great though! I plan on updating this photo often as the plants continue to grow and bloom. I need to take out a lot of my purple coneflower and replace my butterfly bush I lost a few years ago, but that'll maybe happen this summer. 

Check on my Instagram account - thebrickbungalow - for more photos as I work on the yard and show off what's in bloom. 

 

{Side Yard} Ivy Control

While working on our bathroom this summer, Doug and I also got one outside project check off our to do list. We seem to do smaller projects at the same time as big projects. Anyone else do this? I think we had done most of our bathroom and were at the waiting stage (paint drying or something similar) and so we completed one small project. I can't wait to see how it looks this year once some more growth is added.

But… we tackled our side porch's ivy issue. I love the English Ivy and have cut it back a few times to control the growth. It's an amazing plant and we figured we could use it's growing power to block out our neighbors. I'm hoping it'll block out some of their smoke but that's more wishful thinking. I can dream, right?? 

So not only do we have a giant patch of the ivy, there's also another, more boring, type of ivy mixed in with a plant that seems to want to take over the world. I think it's Rose of Sharon and it'll be gone this summer. It's a pretty plant but is in my way. And grows like crazy. This is what we had after I chopped the Rose of Sharon a lot. The ivy is growing up and around the white edge to our porch. 

And so with a few boards, white paint, and some clothes line, we created a zig zag like pattern for the ivy to grow up. It filled it a lot more since this photo but I apparently never took another photo. You can see the saw horse and other bathroom related items that we used this summer. 

 And while cleaning out a lot of the ivy, this big (seriously like 5") praying mantis wanted to defend his territory.  

And yes, we need to paint all the white window sills and trim around our house…

Do you have ivy? How do you control it if you do?  

{Garden} Blueberry Bushes

Our blueberry bushes are growing!!! 

Below is the raised bed we made last year (and a Nate photo bomb, kinda). We started with the two blueberry bushes (one small, one large, two different varieties but don't ask me what kind) and then added some flowers. The flowers have already bloomed and gone away, but now we've added six strawberry plants in hopes of some goodies this summer. Or maybe next year, you never know! 

{Gardening} Raised Bed for Blueberries

Doug and I were always planning on adding more fruits and vegetables to our yard and this summer saw the addition of the raised bed for blueberries. After our sidewalks were ripped out and fixed last summer, we started looking at rocks and what we'd need for a raised bed. This is our front yard and it gets full sun and is a perfect spot for blueberries.

Over a few days time, due to not wanting to overload our SUVs with the 45 pound blocks (each), we brought home these beautiful stones from Menard's. They have a great combination of tan, gray, and red that tie into our house, sidewalks, and foundation stones that we have throughout the yard. As you can see in the photo below, this is right across the sidewalk from Lily's Garden (before the rocks were added). 

Doug bought two varieties of blueberries (they will hopefully ripen at two different times, much like my dad's bushes do). The front one, below, produced a handful of berries this summer. The little guy, that is hard to see in the back, didn't do anything yet but he's tiny and did, luckily, put some growth on. We only put two bushes in the raised bed because they will get large! 

The soil we used in a mixture of dirt, manure, and peat moss. On top is a thick layer of pine needles that act as a mulch. In Missouri, we typically don't mulch with pine needles (I've noticed some southern climates due pine needles for flowers) but they are great for blueberries. 

When I posted some of these photos on Facebook, my friends said they didn't have luck with blueberries. I'm hoping we do. My dad has over 10 bushes and has had a lot of good luck with them. I hope that due to his help getting the soil mixture right and by providing us the pine needles, they will grow well next year and continue to supply blueberries. Lily just loves to go out and pick them. We taught her years ago to pick the ripest berries and she's done a great job since. 

{Lily's Garden} New Bed #1

As stated in the previous post about Lily's Garden, I made a new bed in the one last corner of the garden. When we installed the fence last fall, it broke up the remaining front portion of the garden into four sections. One closest to the house that now has three hydrangeas, one on the other side of the fence from the hydrangeas (that was shown off in the previous post) and two others, closest to the driveway - one on either side of the fence. Confusing, I know. I need some drawings of the aerial shot of the garden.

Anyway, this one corner was rather larger than the rest and I just hadn't tackled it yet. I kind of knew what plants I wanted and knew that they would need to be able to handle full sun. Last fall I remember seeing a few plants I liked at our local nursery, that I love, and so I kept that in my mind all winter long. Now that it's finally past all of our horrible, cold, wet winter, I can plant! And plant I did! I started by clearing out the area, Doug tilled it, and then I focused on the plants. I put the new miniature butterfly bush in the back center, leaving room for it to grow. I added one star gazer lily, some coneflowers, and an assortment of others.

And the semi - after... I need to take a photo of the mulched area. Mulch makes all gardens look great!!! 

One more bed down... makes it three... so one more to go! I hope to knock it out this week!!

Next up on our list... a raised bed in our front yard for our two blueberry bushes! 

{Lily's Garden} New Bed #2

I'm almost done in Lily's Garden! After having new sidewalks installed, we fenced in the yard to match up to the corner of our front porch. The fence broke up the front portion of the garden into 4 possible beds. I created one last fall while pregnant with Nate. One was created last week for my new butterfly bush (and others, of course). And now, bed 3 is done.

As with the rest, I lined it with bricks because the grass will eventually be replaced with rocks and I needed a divider between the mulch and the grass/rocks. This one was one of the hardest to make because of the insane amount of rocks about 1" under the soil. It's where the original rock path once was before we started renovating. We gave up removing every single rock and so they are still there. I started putting a lot in the one bed, as you can see, but they are everywhere.

I hope to get the next one done soon. I don't have flowers for it so there's no rush. However, we have plans to work on the yard on Monday. Tomorrow is Lily's birthday party so it won't happen then.

Doesn't mulch make everything look great!?!? 

{Front Yard} Fall Plantings

As mentioned previously, we got new sidewalks installed professionally. As a part of it, I had to redo our little corner garden with our foundation stone. No biggie though, as it desperately needed the irises and lilies that were super overgrown to find new homes. I changed the shape of it slightly although it's impossible to tell from this angle. 

As they bulldozed the yard, they almost knocked over the stone but it proved it's ability and stayed up (good thing too as it's a monster!). The bricks are recycled off a job site that a friend worked on. The flowers include two yellow mums (that could look a bit better but at least they aren't dead!), and some other flowers I picked up at a local nursery. There's a bush between the two mums but the purple flowers fell over and never rebloomed. Oh well. It'll give me a good spot to put some annuals each year and freshen up the yard. 

The "welcome" sign was installed by the guys who did the sidewalk. They asked if they could and I thought it would be a fun addition. We've talked about painting the inside but I'm thinking it'll stay plain for awhile. We already have enough concrete painting on our to do list that I probably don't need to add more. 

And while I was at it outside with my camera (iPhone today, sorry), I took a photo of the little area Doug and Lily made awhile back. Lily was watering it today and it definitely needs some attention. The overhang on the house protects it from rain, so we have to be careful and make sure it gets extra water. The rocks are hiding some of the smaller plants but it'll be another fun spot to add color yearly. It needs mulch but I still haven't given it much thought as to rocks vs. wood mulch. 

I'm definitely enjoying the colors in our fall garden. It's the first fall that we seem to still have color come the middle of October! 

{Curb Appeal} Sidewalk

The concrete is almost completely finished! We now have this cute little "circle" (technically a rectangle like shown below) that I can envision Lily, and our future Little Man once he's out and old enough, riding around with their bikes. Lily loves to ride her bike up and down the street on the sidewalk but turning around is hard, so this will be a nice learning spot for her. 

The view below is from our front porch, looking toward the driveway. The lighter concrete is the dry concrete and the darker concrete, towards the top right, is the wet concrete. They did a great job of connecting our driveway to the driveway entrance from the street (whatever that's called) because they didn't redo that and it was raised some. 

Again, it's looking from our front porch but more towards the front yard and large rock than the driveway. I have plans for a small planted flower garden around the foundation stone. It'll involve some bricks (gotta use up that pile!) and some coneflowers and maybe some other stuff. Annuals maybe? Who knows! 

For those curious, there's a reason why it's not connected yet. He has that and our final stair (to our porch) to finish and he didn't want to be charged a small load fee (that's a big chunk of money!), so he will finish it once we gets our neighbor's sidewalk poured. Now that our neighbor is doing her's, everyone on our side of the block has had it done. It makes for a nice ride for Lily! 

Not sure why it's sideways, but that's where the step will be. It's formed up and ready to go soon! 

{Curb Appeal} Concrete

There is something to say about hiring out a job to professionals. Doug, my dad, myself, and others can easily help us with many projects (as seen with our upstairs remodel, Lily's big girl room remodel, and our back deck to name a few) but to be able to leave a large job to others is just nice. If we were working at our jobs (we're off for the summer), this would be even nicer as we could come home from work and see the progress. But we've been working away in Lily's room and random other jobs (Doug's been tackling the weeds and overgrown trees this week while the weather was cooler). 

So anyway... enough chit chat, let's get to the photos...

See the semi-before photos here.

Here's our driveway. They cut it back because it was in horrible shape. This is a midway done shot, as they hadn't poured the city sidewalk yet.

We had them connect our main sidewalk to the driveway with another sidewalk. This makes going from our cars to our house so much easier as there wasn't a nice walkway before and walking through wet grass (or a bunch of snow) made it hard. OK, first world problems I know, but I'm imagining this in a few months with a 4 1/2 year old and a newborn on a cold day. 

Looking toward the street.

Our front yard, minus the giant pile of dirt. They smoothed it all out and will seed it soon. We have high hopes for this area and it'll include two blueberry bushes and possibly more garden spots. 

A shot towards the house and what will all be part of Lily's Garden soon.

My Instagram photo..follow me at thebrickbungalow

{Curb Appeal} Before Photos

A little back story for ya: Last summer my next door neighbor, their other neighbor, and two other houses on the other side of my house all got brand new sidewalks through our city. We found out, through our neighbor, that the city pays for 90% of the labor and the homeowner pays the rest. Needless to say, we wanted in! Our city sidewalk (parallel to the street) was old, cracked and needed to be replaced. But what was even worse was the sidewalk from the city sidewalk to our front porch. Sooo... after some investigation, we talked to an old coworker's husband who was one of the workers and asked if we could pay him extra to do our sidewalks.

Fast forward from last fall to now and we're finally getting it done! Here are some of the before and during shots.... 

You can see here that the construction in Lily's Room is still in full swing, but also focus on the weeds growing in all the cracks. Those weeds were actually holding our sidewalk together, so they stayed... yes, it was horrible. That rock with all the irises and lilies around it was one of our foundation stones. We had originally thought of painting our street address on it but then I planted the free (from my aunt) flowers and it hid the rock. The whole thing was surrounded by our free bricks and rocks but it all got removed (minus the gigantic rock, that thing isn't going anywhere!) 

Here's the after shot of the foundation stone after I removed the bricks, rocks and flowers. The flowers were transplanted with our other irises on the south side of our house (it's the most neglected area of our property but they bloom great there!). The rocks were moved to our front bed by the front porch where other rocks were. And the bricks are being held for now to make a new bed around this stone and to create another small flower garden once the sidewalk is complete.

Our house and it's desperate need for curb appeal. We're still in the middle of cleaning off the porch from the construction, my house plants need to go back to school next week (where they live August - May), and the other flowers need replaced after a bad heat spell killed them. Then there's my nemesis - the stupid holly bush. BUT there are some big plans for this small front yard... including the use of my dad's tractor to till it all up (there's a slight hole where an old tree was removed) and level it all out. We will then replace all the grass. The bottom step (right above the concrete sidewalk) was also torn out.. you can see how it's super unlevel in this photo.

More construction stuff. ;) Our giant bushes were removed and only their stumps are left. They will be killed off sooner or later.

This big guy removed our sidewalk so easily. It was so torn up that it wasn't hard, but that thing is beast! And of course, you can see more cracks!) 

An Instagram photo (follow me at thebrickbungalow) of the city sidewalk once the beast removed all the concrete.  

Our yard... or what's left of it. 

Here's a shot of our new sidewalk we asked him to do too. It connects the front porch to our driveway, which is also getting replaced (the bad parts anyway). 

This was our driveway...and in horrible shape. Some how I can't find my before photo of it, but imagine lots and lots of cracks. It looked like a piece of glass that had shattered, with lines going everywhere. It was bad. 

A view looking from the driveway to our front yard. The giant stone is behind the pile of dirt and the patch of grass/weeds on the right is the entrance to Lily's garden (lots of plans in my head right now!).

And speaking of Lily's Garden... Once the sidewalk is complete, we will add plants that go between it and our house. It'll then continue to wrap around the house, giving me lots of area to plant. You can see the sides of the arbor we bought that will be centered in the area (centered between the house and the driveway), giving some climbing area for a clematis or another climbing flower. We still have plans to fence in the whole area as well to add a visual border, a place for flowers to grow up on, and to divide the area below up to have some in front of the fence and some behind the fence.  

And just in case you wanted to know... we hired this project out. We have done concrete before. Doug spent a summer in college or high school working with a crew, my dad has built custom raised beds for his garden (I should post those here, they are cool!), and I helped with a few of the beds.. I'm good at leveling things out. However, my dad is busy and neither Doug or I really wanted to take on another project a week away from going back to work (we're both teachers). So, when the city program happened and we asked the guy to do the rest (normally not done with the city program), we were all excited to pay someone else. Plus, it's nice to be able to focus on other projects (like Lily's bedroom) while this gets worked on. AND it should be finished and hopefully completely cured by the time school starts next week (or at least the week after, I'm ok with parking in the street). 

{Curb Appeal} Bushes

As we continue to work on the house both inside and out, we kept looking away from the ugly eye sores shown in the photo below - the holly bush on the left and the two big shrubs on the right. We have already tackled some of the other overgrown bushes that are out of the picture frame to the right and I attacked the holly bush last year. The stump is still there but we'll get there eventually. This time around, Doug focused on the two large shrubs in front of our house. 

When we bought the house, there was a tiny garden on the left and the shrubs on the right. You can imagine that years ago, things looked completely different but the plants took over and became huge (even bigger than what was in the photo). They were maybe 4-5 feet wide, completely hogging up the "path" that was made with a few stepping stones and gravel years ago. 

Well, this year, we are on the list with the city to get a new sidewalk. As the company replaces the sidewalk (the one that runs parallel to the street), we are hiring them to replace the sidewalk to our house and to build one from that one (shown below) to our driveway. The bushes are in our way! 

Doug attacked them, cutting off all the green and hauling them off to the city dump. 

In the photo, below, you can see what remains of the walkway from the sidewalk to the driveway. It's horrible. Once the new sidewalk is poured, we'll have about 2 feet of flower garden between the house and the sidewalk and then a 3 foot sidewalk. We have plans to completely fix our front yard too but that'll wait until after the sidewalks are installed. It'll also help us finish up the remaining part of Lily's Garden, and create the entrance for it! 

{Lily's Garden} Rocks

We have a giant mess on our hands that we started dealing with last weekend... it's a giant path of ugly rocks that goes from our sidewalk to our driveway. It's right in front of Lily's Garden and in the way of a prettier entrance and part of where we want the arbor and fence to go. Needless to say, it's time to make it go away! So, with the nice weather last weekend, we started. Four (or was it five?!) trips to the back yard (to fill up the mud pit) we called it a day to deal with Lily, dinner, bath time, and everything else. It'll at least be 15-20 more buckets full to remove it all. There is a lining (shown in the pic below) underneath it all if that makes any difference but it's been punctured so weeds and dirt are all included already.

Eventually we will have a newly paved sidewalk to the front of our house and to our driveway (plus at least part of our driveway repaved to fix all the nasty cracks) and that'll make it look so much better! Last year our city did an improvement program and helped pay 90% of the costs for a new sidewalk but we were too late to get it in the fall. I need to see if they are going to do it again and sign up ASAP if they are!

The front of Lily's garden. There will be a fence (made out of wood supports and metal panels for plants to grow up on) and our arbor that we bought last year that will be centered on the big bed in front. More plants will be added, grass will be gone completely, and pea gravel and mulch will be added (plus some stepping stones of some sort). It'll look great once it's all done and grown in. Oh, and I also want to add a trellis of some kind on the bump out on the house (which is our fireplace wall). Doesn't it just call for something?

Our helper, she insists on doing as much as she physically can.

And then it was time to ride her tricycle and clean it too....