Jungle Boogie

Our back yard could be described as a bit of a jungle, or a tangle, but it certainly isn't very orderly. Jeff and I have under taken the steps to change that. First was removing the rotting decorative fence from around the mud-pit-formerly-known-as-an-herb-garden, seen  here in my previous entry. Second is the ongoing battle with the vines, which we have confirmed with some friends who are actual gardeners is bind weed vine. And it is slowly binding up all of our plants. I spent an evening clearing our 1 1/2 flower beds. The results were this:

This pile is the tip of a very large ice berg. The blood of many a bindweed vine is on my hands:

There is gross orange staining when you pull up the vines, yuck!

Next was determined by a 30% off sale at the nursery next to a store we were shopping at on Saturday morning. We bought a lilac bush and a tree. Now we just needed to find them new homes in the yard.

Jeff and I started Saturday afternoon by taking on the rotten raised garden bed in the back. We ripped up the bed and all of the over grown plants in it. We planted the lilac bush and put grass seed in the remaining area. Here is the before and after:

It really helps to open up the yard as you can see better below:

It's a little hard to tell in the pictures because the dirt spot is so much darker, but take my word on it!

Next we worked on the dirt patch in the middle of the back yard where a tree use to be. The previous owners put their jungle gym over it so no grass has ever grown over the area. It had become an area we couldn't mow, so the bind weed vine just keeps growing:

We had purchased a lovely little Bloodgood Japanese Maple at the 30% off sale that now gets to call this area home. We dug out the weeds and added some new top soil. Now the little tree is very happy:

Now the backyard is a little more pulled together:

Before

After

But the backyard did not receive all of the attention. On Sunday afternoon, I began to weed and mulch the front yard. The front was too over grown. We ran out of mulch, so still a work in progress, but it is already an improvement!

Also, don't worry about the hostas in the tree pictures. They got a new home up front:

I know that was a lot, but I owed our readers an big update! There is more to follow!