You can know anything. It's all there. You just have to find it.

-Neil Gaiman

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Monday, July 23, 2012

Before and After (For now)

So the new house we moved into has a much bigger yard.  And the great thing is that a gardener lived there.  The bad thing is that for the past few years they were unable to maintain it.

So I kind of inherited a jungle.

At least, after a deluge of rain in June and 90+ degree days for the past three weeks, I have one.  I attempted a few weeks ago to tackle a section of the yard that had been overgrown.  There were several lilac trees that needed pruning and the ground underneath was rife with various weeds.

I hate pulling weeds.

So I found a trick.  It is cheap and easy and eco-friendly.

Newspaper.

When you want to kill weeds or grass you just lay down a thick layer of newspaper and then cover that with mulch.  It kills the weeds and eventually the newspaper breaks down and amends into the soil.

Then I divided a few hostas and ferns.  I bought a few hydrangea plants because right now the shrubs are dirt cheap, and also because I love hydrangeas.

So this is what I started with:

The definition of Bugly (butt-ugly).  Unfortunately, most of the yard looks like this around the perimeter.

I die a little inside when I see stuff like this.


So compared to that, this is way better.  For the moment there is not much here but eventually things will fill in and I will plant more flowers.  At least it is clean.

See what a difference newspaper and mulch can make.


Even Matt was impressed.

And that is impressive.

Right now I'm working on the dining room, stripping off wallpaper and priming walls.  It is SUPER fun.  Not really.  But it is one of the few rooms in the house that is an easy and cheap(er) fix, and I will post pictures of that when I'm done.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Wow...you did an awesome job! It looks beautiful.