Landscaping

We have done the landscaping in many parts as we did that last house. But the phases were not spread out into years as it was at the last house. 

We had the yard graded for a while, but then the landscapers were waiting for it to rain to break up the big clumps of dirt. They were able to get the entire dirt pile spread out over our yard. It helped us avoid having to pay money for someone to come haul it away.

The rain never came, so they started with the irrigation. The sod was delivered the same day. 

I did not expect the sod to be spread out that day, but the guys stayed late and the sod install was complete and the sprinklers were aligned!

For two weeks we have watered twice a day for three hours a day. That was an hour for each sod zone.

I will say it has paid off. The grass is green and didn’t die in the July heat!

They say to keep the sod “floating” for two weeks. Now we will taper the watering times and let it dry out some so that we can get to the point we can mow it.

Before the sod was laid, we planted our large trees. 

Then Mr. JCrew and I started planting some plants. Our first section was under Mom’s window.

When you looked at all the plants we had, it felt overwhelming. Each person said how much work it was going to be.

And it was. Mr. JCrew and I took a day off from work to tackle it all. We arrived before any contractors and were the last to leave. It showed the contractors that we are not spoiled and we are willing to do anything. They’ve seen me with my drill, hammer and shovel. I can participate!

That day in the yard we planted 33 plants in the front and 33 plants in the back. I wish I would have taken a picture of us. We looked so cute all sweaty and muddy!

Since then, we’ve been adding a little by little. It was slowly coming together. 

The irrigation folks had to come back out to lay French Drains. I said from the beginning that we would need them. I saw the low points. Unfortunately, I was not listened to until after the sod was laid and they saw for themselves. So that tore up the yard a little bit, but flooding issues are taken care of. 

Once the French drains were complete, we could get the mulch placed. It bought me time to get all the plants in the ground.

The mulch company quoted me thousands of dollars. I told Mr. JCrew it looked like we would be doing this ourselves. I had 36 tractor scoops delivered. We received two truck loads Thursday night. We started spreading the mulch out Friday morning. 

We had reduced our mounds and were close to calling it a day, when our third truck-load came. It rained, so we took a break and got back out there. It was so hard! Physically, I felt like I was at the Crossfit Games. I would run with my wheelbarrow through the muddy parts so I wouldn't get stuck. Then we had the pitchfork that worked my core muscles. I feel stronger, but that was an intense workout!

We finished the mulch on Saturday. There were some areas we laid weed control fabric.

These were areas that I took my weed eater to to kill grass from our neighbors yard. And the weeds/grass in the back corner of our lot was never removed, so I was fighting that. I should have laid down a chemical to kill it, but I'm hoping the weed fabric and mulch is good enough. We did not buy the stakes, so we used mulch clumps to help hold down the fabric until we could get more mulch to spread all around.

We made a mess planting and laying mulch. We should have planted the plants first before sod so we weren't making grooves with our wheelbarrows in the wet sod. Lesson learned. 

I tried to choose large plants and trees because I knew they would dwarf up next to a large house. Some still feel small, but it will grow and be perfect in about five years. I paid attention to spacing carefully. I wanted to avoid placing things too close together ensuring I would not have to move it in five years.

This really was one of my favorite parts. The house started looking less like a construction zone. I even had the boys out there helping. They loved it, but they still have issues with getting themselves dirty. Poor kiddos! And the neighbors got a kick out of seeing the boys help. They were digging holes and using the hose to make it "rain."

We have utility boxes on the edge of our property. The street view has bushes hiding them, but we see them from the house. It's currently our scrap yard for material, but I planted some large bushes that will be beautiful to look at from our porch and take the attention away from the boxes.

 

And we already caught the geese enjoying the yard.

Doing the landscaping ourselves saved us tons of money but also got us to meet our neighbors. We had so many people stop to talk to us and they are all so nice! We've lived in this neighborhood for 7 years and the street we are moving on to has the nicest people. I am so happy with where we chose to build this house. It was the right choice. 

The yard is officially complete! I'm so excited I don't have to get muddy any more!