Before
After
Our new home has a jungle for a front yard (and back yard.) So much of it is beautiful flowering plants gone wild. Most of the front yard is a lovely shade loving ground cover that blooms all over in purple flowers. The beauty is spoiled by all sorts of volunteer trees etc. popping up through. So late last week, while Darren was at work, I grabbed my trimmers and went to work.
One of the weeds spoiling the yard was a very long, healthy vine. I grabbed it and pulled it out, but I’m not positive I got the root. I was busy congratulating myself when I saw the tell-tale 3 leaf pattern on the vine. One of the leaves looked suscpiciously like a mitten. Oh, dear. “Leaves of 3, leave them be.” I ran in the house and scrubbed my hands all the way to the elbow. I thought about washing my face…but here’s the stupid part. I had just put on a lovely smokey eye with charcoal gray and gold and I wanted DH to see it. So I didn’t wash my face. So now, I have poison ivy all over my face and not anywhere else. Oh vanity!
I have much work left to do in the yard, but it’s fun satisfying work. I’m planning to remove the rest of the feeble evergreen bushes and replace them with shade loving varities. Then I’d like to paint my shutters and front door dark gray while repainting the trim white to freshen it up.
I have lots of plans for the back too! Hopefuly within the next 2 weeks that will mean clearing this spot:
For these:
I was so excited when Aldi had them on sale for $30 each! Since I’m wood challenged, this was a great deal for me :).
P.S. I’m thinking about taking the fake railing thing down off the top of the front porch. What do you think?
Wow Angela! I agree, it’s great fun doing work like that, because you can see results right away! Great job. Sorry about the poison ivy – I’ve gotten it before; just used banana peels and oatmeal…
Well, since you asked… take off the railing!
In several years, my sweetie and I are hoping to be able to build a house on a piece of land… so I love reading about home repair/remodel and yard work. 🙂
Your home is looking lovely, too bad about the poison ivy! I say take the railing down, if it serves no actual purpose I think it takes away from the overall look. Beautiful colorscheme though, adding the grey and freshening the white will really finish off your house. What’s going in your planters, veggies or flowers?
your work looks great… the railing could go….
Have fun with your raised beds. I’m not handy with wood either, so we got Lowes to make the cuts for us (for free). What are you going to plant?
I am so sorry about you getting poison ivy. I have had it (more than once) and it’s no fun. Love your house. Nice trimming job. I would take down the railing. It’s a little distracting. 😀
Thanks for the well wishes! I’m planting vegetables. But I have no plan so far. I’m hoping while I sit at my garge sale next week I can figure one out. 🙂
I think the railing takes away from the rest of the house. If you keep it maybe you should paint it a color that doesn’t stick out as much but I’d take it down if it was my house. I’ve nevr had poison ivy so I can’t say I know your pain but I am sorry for it!
Your yard is looking GREAT! I can’t believe how much you can accomplish in a day. You inspire me. I’m going to go clean up around my roses –
Good luck at your garage sale!
Railing= Fail.
We’ve been square foot gardening for several years. My husband made some nifty tops out of pvc and chicken wire to keep out the animals (especially cats). We have trellises in the back of two of our boxes. We have two small children so our boxes are mostly easy care, hard to kill greens: Collards, Swiss Chard and Kale. We’ve found that the boxes (our are 6″ deep) aren’t deep enough for tomatoes, despite what the web sites say.