I moved into my house when I was 19 years old and any form of lawn care was the furthest thing from my mind. When my husband and I started dating, about four years ago, he helped me put in my first little vegetable patch and I was hooked. This year we really expanded, putting in the raised beds that I have been showing you. But, until recently, our landscaping has been somewhat hindered by the fact that our three wonderful dogs have had complete freedom to roam and are all far too enthusiastic about doing their own digging and landscaping. Not any more. We have finally, after many years of talking about it, fenced in our yard. It is truly life changing. Not only do we not have to go and find them or worry about what they are doing, we can finally do some much needed landscaping. The picture above is the early stages of our work. My husband put in the stone walk in the dog run and we are planning on filling the spaces between the stones with grass. In the area between the drive way and the fence we are digging up the grass, planting flowers and building a strawberry box.
The puppies were a little upset when they were banished from yard work.
Magnolia tree in full bloom attracting lots of bees to pollinate.
So far we have planted two butterfly bushes and an Annabelle
Hydrangea. I have been told that the Annabelle Hydrangea likes being in the shade so I am a little worried about the chosen location. The Shamrocks are also coming out and I love them, they are such pretty little plants. My goal is to keep the landscape edible herbs and flowering perennials. I want to try to keep it as low maintenance as possible. A wise lady once told me that if it has a will to survive then it will.
We are making progress in our landscaping effort. I finally got all of the grass dug up and the stones for walking path to the fence gate laid. My sweet sweet husband built me a strawberry box and I have started filling it. On the other side of the stones my hope if to have a mix of different, low maintenance, wild flowers. I am looking forward to grass growing between the stones so that the dogs stop bringing mud into the house. I also planted lavender, rosemary, and sage in the small section that is surrounded by stones, hopefully they will survive through the winter and be back next summer. On the back of the fence I am hoping to plant blackberries and raspberries to grow up the fence wire. Our lower yard is big and sunny. This is where the puppies spend most of their time. I was thinking of planting some apple and pear trees. I will keep you posted.
