Spring Cleaning!

Spring cleaning has begun.  I cut the fountain grass down to size, deheaded the hydrangea tree, and pruned back the butterfly bushes.  Next, rake the beds and add fresh mulch.  It is a perfect day today to work outside and the kids were equally happy entertaining themselves in the sandbox.  Hooray!

Goodbye Cousin It

Before

After

Hugh and I had been thinking about removing this 8foot wide grass plant for ages.  A previous owner had created a 4' diameter concrete pond adjacent to the driveway with this grass plant beside it.  The plant grew so big it covered the pond completely. I broke up the concrete with a sledgehammer in the spring so we wouldn't have any stagnant water to breed mosquitoes.  I had asked our lawn guy to give us a price to remove it, but he never gave us one so I took matters into my own hands.  I created a craigslist post advertising a free grass plant but specifying that they would have to bring their own tools and dig it up.  Sure enough, a guy came and dug it out (in four pieces).  A levelled the dirt mound with a metal rake, added 4 bags of topsoil, then planted some grass seed.  I can't wait to see it all filled in! 
In related news, Sav-a-Lawn came and aerated the entire lawn and added more grass seed. 

Grass Seed Experiment

I finally leveled the rocky, bamboo root infested mound that sat at the southeast corner of our backyard.  I added some of that grass seed/fertilizer/mulch all-in-one products by Pennington.  I also spent an hour breaking up the soil around my new shade garden.and raking in some 3 year old grass seed. 
It is supposed to get hot later this week, so not great timing, but I'm giving it a go.

leveled mound at southeast corner

shade garden at north east corner