Yard Work

The Before
(granted it was early spring when somethings really were looking their worst)

Yard work = Hard work. It doesn't help that the first weekend we finally had to do yard work was also the hottest weekend in Virginia so far. Not ideal. First of all, when we bought our house the landscaping wasn't horrible. There was something to go from, but about half of the stuff was dead. We also needed to make it look like a female graced the threshold of the place.

The After

We decided to do some transplanting to move all of the alive boxwoods to one side of the house along the foundation. Then we replaced the stuff we moved and all the dead stuff with some holly bushes and a dwarf spruce tree. I potted some flowers as well. Sounds somewhat simple, right? Not so much. Virginia, I hate your drivers and your unpredictable traffic, but your stupid red clay soil...is that really necessary? And then there are big boulders in the middle of all that red clay. So so so ridiculous. There is no doubt in my mind we were a site to see. It was a struggle. I have never been so happy to be done with something in my life. I do have to say it looks better in my opinion.

The transplanted boxwoods

Some of the pots

New holly bushes and dwarf spruce tree

Side of the house

The other thing you have to consider when you live in a townhouse...where to put all this dirt you just moved. And all that clay and mulch was heavy. We went to a dirt composting place that ironically doesn't take dirt. After I realized the guy wasn't joking I begged him to let us drop off our two cars full of dirt just this one time...he caved. Blog readers, I tell you it better only have to be this one time because I cannot dig a hole one more time. Ever. Again.

After