Connecting the Dots

At the start of spring our front yard looked like this.  A few large trees, a few landscaping beds near the street that we have enlarged significantly over the last two years and two new beds toward the house.  The ultimate goal is connect all of these in one large bed with a path from close to the house to the mailbox.  In order to plant more beds and finish the mulch we need to locate and build the path so that we can connect all of the dots.

Late last week, in the pouring rain, we had 5 tons of 3/4" Delaware River Jack delivered to the house.  This will be the foundation of the path with flagstone stepping stones.

My parents came down on Sunday to help with the path and plantings.  We marked the path with paint and then mowed the grass as low as the mower would allow, then we placed some landscape fabric (leftover from a retaining wall project at the shore -- thanks, SD!) and tucked some newspaper underneath to kill the grass under the new mulch areas. 

 

My dad and Andy transported over 7000 lbs of stone via wheelbarrow and started placing the stone on top of the fabric.

We already had the flagstone pavers.  They created a straight path that cut right through the middle of the backyard...

And a path to nowhere around a bed of pachysandra. I was happy to get rid of both paths although now we need to plant some more grass in the backyard before the weeds start invading. 

  

We pulled up all of the pavers and carried what we needed around to the front.

We test-walked a few sections to make sure the spacing was correct and then set all of the stepping stones.  The one closest to the curb required some measuring and cutting to make sure it was parallel to the curb.

 

We were all exhausted by the time the path was finished.  I figure that between all of the stone, mulch and pavers we hauled over 8,000 lbs of material on Sunday (or 2 average size cars!). We still had a few plants that wouldn't survive if left unplanted.  We got all of the Hypericum plants in before my parents left for the day and then Andy and I planted a few more things before it got dark and we crashed for the evening. 

 

We love the new path and are excited to fill in the rest of the bed. Thanks Mom and Dad for all of your help (and free plants too!).

Warm Weather Weeds and a Few Plants

Lots of weeds, little grass.  I guess these plants with the little yellow flowers aren't really weeds.  It's called Lesser Celandine and it was brought to the Untied States to be used as a ground cover.  FYI -- I didn't buy any of this stuff and we don't remember having it last year either.  It is now listed as an invasive plant and takes over everything!  It's not ugly, but I hate it!

Some iris that we moved from the front of the house.  I don't think this will be a permanent location (Kodak has already broken off a few of them), but they already look healthier than they did out front.

Daffodils by the driveway.  Not a ton of blooms this year, but I'm just happy to see that they are actually growing.

A clematis that I bought last year and planted by the lamppost.  

Lamppost bed with more daffodils and hellebores.

The hellebores are my favorite.  They have been blooming since February!

A typical occurrence -- weeds and red maple seedlings (they are everywhere!)  I thought I dug most of them out last year but we seem to have twice as many this year.

Three Weigela by the front family room windows.  I think these look great considering that I got them on the Lowe's clearance rack for $2 each and was convinced that they were dead before I even planted them.

Oak leak hydrangea in the front yard.

Bakeri Spruce looks like it survived the winter.

Hinoki Cypress.  This one isn't doing too well.  It was already having problems when it was planted because it was secretly balled and burlapped inside the pot. I trimmed off a few branches that were completely dead.  Some of the remaining branches have brown tips, so we'll have to see if its condition improves over the summer.

Little Henry Iteas.  There are five planted around the mailbox.  I bought three of them on the same clearance rack at the Weigelas (these were a bit more expensive at $5 each!). 

This is one sad looking dogwood tree at the corner of the house.  It's hard to see in this picture, but if you follow up the main trunk you can see the limb wrapped with duct tape where the branch turns to the left.  We eventually plan to remove this tree, but when the large center branch broke in one of the hurricane/ice/winds storms last fall we couldn't just remove the branch (the tree would have looked like a giant Y) and we weren't ready to cut it down. We decided to trim some of the weight off of the upper branches and duct tape it back together.  It worked! The broken branch actually has blooms.

Documenting daylilies.  I have been spraying them with liquid deer fence but I check them every day because I'm convinced that the deer or rabbits are going to eat them.

I almost couldn't even post this picture.  The Lesser Celandine made it's way to one of the new front flower beds.  It has surrounded almost all of the new plants.  I tried to kill some (the brown area) with weed killer.  It worked, but I can't use it everywhere because of all of the plants that are actually supposed to be there.  I am slowly (very slowly) ripping it all out by hand.  The newspaper and leaf combo that we put under the mulch worked in all of the other beds so I'm convinced that this stuff seeded in the mulch over the winter.

Remember when it looked like this? So very sad!

My favorite - peach daffodils.

Red Lady Hydrangeas are doing well.

And a few new pansies for the front door (thanks Mom!)