We recently ROCKED some landscaping.

I love our dear little house. I do. But good grief were all the planting beds absolutely overgrown and ignored. I’m sure years ago the landscaping looked adorable. But now the mulch is dry rotted, the plants are overgrown and untrimmed, and nothing is healthy.

Here’s our before… and not even the full before – this shot is not from the height of summer – it got worse before we took action. On the left hand side of the picture hard to see, those rocks and hosta plants ringed that tree. And hidden behind that out of shot is another tree ringed with lilies. And that planting bed on the left side of the house? It extended halfway into the yard. Where it wasn’t supposed to be.

By mid summer everything had grown and overgrown and it was time to take action. We spent multiple weekends pulling out the old mulch, the rocks, and so many overgrown hostas we lost count. All of the rocks and many of the hostas got transplanted to our cabin up north, so we made some good lemonade out of those lemons.

Once we had a blank slate, we set to work. One weekend, 20 16″ square paving stones, about 60 small edging bricks, 23 bags of mulch, and two willing homeowners.

First we widened the sidewalk with a row of 16″ square paving stones seated on a nice bed of gravel and sand. The phase 2 plan is to replace the sidewalk with two more rows of these same pavers. In time, in time. We’re hoping this will help with drainage. Plus, the sidewalk was too narrow for 2, and the planting bed was way too deep.

Then we put down landscape fabric, added in our plants, placed the edging pavers, and poured on the mulch. All of this over the course of two 90 degree summer days.

The grass on the left side of the house has grown in nicely since this last picture was taken. While we still have 3 sides of the house yet to tackle, it is nice to see one finished. We’ve had several intense rains since completing the front, and I’m happy to report that the mulch and paving stones have held up nicely!

On a side note, we’ve since tackled a second side of the house. The garage side had a low planting bed with nothing in it. Ugly and pointless. We removed the paving stones, removed all the extra soil to get back to ground level, and planted grass seed. It looks simple and nice. Next week I plan on transplanting a few of our remaining hostas (yes, there are still plenty left in the backyard). Easy peasy side garage.

I think the house is happy.

Have a great weekend!

Cheers,

S