Before & After: Front Yard Makeover

Our second major summer outdoor project (the front yard makeover) is complete! And although we won't really see it in its full glory until the grass and plants grow in, it already looks better.

BEFORE:

We had 1 major problem, 1 minor problem, and many cosmetic problems.

• Major Problem: There was a grading issue where the water was running back into the foundation that had to be fixed.

• Minor Problem: We wanted more privacy and a sound barrier between us and the intermittently busy road in front of our house. And not only is the road busy, but we are only 40-50 feet from a stop light, so sometimes we have cars waiting at a red light in front of our house.

• Cosmetic Problems: Our yard was mostly weeds that included dandelions, sticker bushes, thistles, wild parsnip, crab grass..etc etc. Additionally the gardens had old 60 year old shrubs that I am sure Superman himself could not pull out partly due to how big and deep the roots are but also because of our rock hard cement like clay soil. (Editor's note: Either Superman most definitely could have pulled out these shrubs, since he was able to close the San Andreas Fault Line to prevent California from falling into the ocean, or he couldn't because fictional characters cannot effect the non-fictional world.)

I love to garden and work on the yard, but I am simply too overwhelmed with all of these issues, so Chris agreed we could hire it done. To give you a good idea of what it looked like here are a couple videos.

Before video 1 of 2: Check out this yard.

Before video 2 of 2: Check out this garden, so sad.

Ugh, can you even feel the stress looking at this yard? What does one do?

So I spent about 12 months trying to find a landscaper to take on this job. The challenges I found were that many of them didn't want to do a job this small. I wanted the yard and garden ripped up, drain tile put in along the front, black dirt brought in then re-seeded and plants redone entirely. I also wanted some kind of solution in the front that would limit the view from the street giving us some privacy and hopefully some noise reduction.

THE AFTER:

So much better. The landscaping crew brought in a tractor and took off the top 5 inches of soil, and used that same tractor to pull out the old shrubs and plants. Then they installed some drain tile that runs along the front and drains around the side of the house down the slope to the back yard. After that was black dirt, garden boarder, shrubs for privacy at the end of the yard, and some plants.

After photos:

A new row of shrubs will grow tall and wide giving us some privacy and noise reduction. Also, instead of sod you can see we have planted seed under a straw mat.

As you can see there is a gap between one of our shrubs and the rest. What happened is there are some underground thingies between those shrubs, so we will make that gap look very intentional. Chris is going to make a wood sign for that spot that calls out our house number... but not until the baby grass grows in. Can't wait for that future project!

Our new grass seed. Hope it gets enough light under our huge trees! The new drain tile runs along the boarder of garden and yard along the front of the house. Really exciting to fix water trouble..

We have added quite a few plant babies. I can't wait for these guys to grow up and fill in. I am thinking it's going to look so much better.

Some pretty hydrangea babies just planted!

Bee Balm babies just planted.

Russian Sage babies. Love the leaves on these!

Coreopsis Babies

Cone Flower Babies

We have no regrets with this landscaping decision. When these plants start to fill in it will be great!

WHAT'S NEXT?

• Well there is some watering and some gardening that needs to be done.

• Chris will have to make a sign for that gap in the hedges (unless we come up with another solution).

• Oh AND we're getting new windows this fall that should really help our poor little house perk up!