Welcome to the Jungle

Landscaping and Dressing 'er Up

When we bought our home, the yard was spacious (almost 2 acres) but it was a hot mess!  I am talking about a jungle. It was on the market for almost two years and had sat vacant for a while.  It was just plain overgrown.  The nice gentleman we bought our home from used to farm daylilies.  (Daylilies are one of my favorite flowers! Maybe that is why I felt drawn to this home.)  He had four massive raised beds that he used to grow daylilies and they took up a good portion of the side yard. 

MLS listing photo from we bought our home. 

Another MLS photo.  These were the only two.  There was a reason the whole side yard and the inside of the house wasn't shown. Whew!

What isn't pictured in the above photos is a  massive side yard with a chain link fence around it.  It was completely overgrown with briars and thistles and poison ivy.  There was a wayward grapevine growing into a Mimosa tree.  There were pipes everywhere from the once functioning sprinkler system.  IT. WAS. A. MESS.  

If it tells you anything, after we took down the chain link fence, we had to get my dad to bring his tractor and we bush hogged the yard.  Yep. It was that bad. We also had to use his tractor to remove the massive, overgrown holly bushes in the front landscaping.  We basically started with a blank slate when it came to our new landscaping. We were able to save a few plants and reuse them in other locations. 

Our home after we pulled everything out.  This was during winter so the grass was dead, but we had to pull out before we could put back. 

After adding our base plants:

In the early spring, we go to work adding in our base or foundation plants. To keep things within our budget, we opted to plant smaller plants and spaced them accordingly.  We knew within a relatively small time frame, they would grow and fill in. 

1.Arborvitae

2. Boxwood

3. Knockout Roses

4. Daylilies

5. Nandina

6. Double ruffle white Camelia

7. Sky Pencil Holly

8. Juniper (can't remember what variety)

They are small now but when they reach maturity, they should fill in nicely.  I might add a couple of things here and there, but for now this is good.  I did allow for space for annuals to the left of some of the daylilies and on the other side of our sidewalk toward the west side of our house.  

The arborvitaes are probably my favorite that we planted. We planted four; one on either side of our exterior walls and one on either side of the sidewalk at the front entry.  They are only about three feet tall now, but they get pretty large and majestic looking. I can't wait until ours grow to maturity. My other favorites that we planted are the boxwoods. I can't wait until mine are large enough to prune into a cute little ball. Here are some of my inspiration pictures from my Pinterest boards, Outdoor Spaces and Landscaping.

Arborvitaes  with pretty white flowers (source)

Arborvitae and boxwood (source)

Beautiful boxwoods (source)

Ahhh. Drool. I guess I will have to be patient for my little plants to grow up.  But won't they be beautiful when they do?

Progress!  Hint: There is a sneak peak of an upcoming post in the background of this picture. Can you guess what it is?


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