a home of one's own

a neighbor stopped the car one day when we were toiling in the yard keeping things spruced up and said: "your yard looks like a fairy wonderland". the ultimate compliment.

and a journey that began here (which isn't too bad if you don't look too closely):


august 2005

is now here:


july 2008

and i am pretty proud of it actually.

ps - the tree in the corner is a red bud, planted last summer.

it began like this:



august 2005

a year later and after a lot of struggle, some hired help brought it to this:



august 2006

another year later, it looked like this with a horticulture student's inept and misguided efforts:



june 2007

last month:


june 2008

and now:



july 2008

in the post titled "fencing for privacy", there is a photo of the backyard in may 07. Well, this year things have lighted up a litte more because the power company got rid of the chinese walnut in the corner (on the outside of the fence, on the burm), not to mention the aforementioned pine which is also now missing. well, for the most part anyway.

july 2008
this again is a work in progress as you can see from the scraggly grass. i am having that area paved with patio stones (i.e., another patio extension). the grass got that way thanks again largely to the pine and its acidic needles which have been everywhere through all seasons as long as i have lived in this house. now, it's a different story though.

so for comparison here is before:


an overgrown bit of woodland right in my backyard, august 2005
the patio stone cost about $.18 per pound and has a nice reddish tone (most likely called blue rose but don't quote me on it) bought it at guthrie stone, a local place that delivered for $95. Altogether, stone alone cost $350+$95. labor was extra. had a couple of former students work on it at $30/hr each. Both on the fresh sod ($27) and the patio. They took about 5 hours on the first day and 6 hours on the second to bring it up to this point. what a total turn around. but you need big strong boys to do that kind of thing in two days. that's for sure. labor for the backyard - cleanup, compost, sod and patio was $400 even. i am almost at a $2000 mark for this summer and have decided to stop.

it took me a year (actually a tad bit longer than that) to return with an update on the garden make-over. But it's a work in progress and far from being done. Did I mention earlier that in August 07 I got married? So now there is two to toil over the beautification project.
***
ahem, a quick aside - watching C mow the lawn, I realized that I did not know the first thing about mowing and had done a horrible job up until he took over. what can i say? i was born and raised in a system where grass was not a priority - not unless you were the hired help to care for it. but that is neither here nor there...
***
so... back to the garden. the last update was the backyard. work still is on-going and here's what i did (read: had done) this summer. and what a difference it makes. first, the big ol ponderosa pine is no more. on one hand, i say thank god, on another i do think it's a pity. if only it was a less messy tree. but it took $800 to get out of my hair. now i have additional living space. the (tiny) backyard that was unusable before (thanks to the pine) is now the venue for every evening meal. how can that be a bad thing? the pine tree does not seem to have provided a lot of shade to the house because the a/c unit is going at it's old pace and does not seem to be taxed any more than usual. so i need not have worried on that account at all. sure the tree was big and tall but, in retrospect, entirely useless.
so this is what the yard looks like post-tree removal. the stump, btw, is still there - may be as a memento or rather to avoid the extra hassle of having to call a fence guy again to fill in the gap. either way. a token remains of its majestic, useless presence:

a mighty stump

Also noteworthy are the following before-and-after shots:


after - july 2008


before - july 2007

and going even further back in time:


in the beginning - july 2005