Yard Crashers

As many of you know, I like to be outdoors. So I was ecstatic when the temperature warmed to 80 degrees earlier this month, allowing me to tackle some yard work. The winter blues were really starting to get to me, and I had a long list of spring projects I wanted to get started on, but it was just too cold outside. Now that the unusually high temperatures have dropped back down to seasonal norms, here's a look back at what I've accomplished so far (with a little help from Gretchen and Augie).

First, a look back. This is what our fence line looked like when we bought our house in July. We had two trees on our side of the fence line: the visible one and the one so covered in vines that you couldn't even see the tree trunk. Two days after we bought the house, that tree was strangled to death by the vines and fell flat in our back yard. Speaking of vines, most of the fence was covered in these things I can only describe as vine trees. There were three of them, and they were massively overgrown. The right side of the fence had grape vines growing on it. There was another grape vine under the vines on the left side of the fence, but you couldn't see it. Growing on the ground in front of the fence was another set of vines. In short, the fence line was a mess.

This is what it looks like now. I call it the warning track. Last fall, I tore down the vine trees on the left side of the fence. Most of them I couldn't completely eradicate because the trunks were growing in the chain link fence. You can see one of them had grown so heavy that it actually bent the top of the fence. I haven't gotten around to tearing out the grapes on the right side yet. This month, I ripped out the vines growing on the ground in front of the fence. Beneath all the vines growing on the fence was that awkward piece of wooden fence you see at the far edge of the fence line. It was used to cover a gap in the fence between the neighbor's wooden fence and the end of my chain link fence.

Here's a little bit closer look. This is what's left of the tree strangled by the vines. It's now home to my Travelocity gnome. I've planted grass seed on the warning track, but not inside the stump. I am planning on using that as a natural flower pot of sorts (since it wasn't coming out anytime soon). A side note about the vines that were growing on the ground. They were apparently poisonous, and cost me a doctor's visit and two weeks of itchy arms and legs. We weren't really sure what they were, which is why I wanted to rip them out of my yard, but I didn't believe they were poisonous. I had worked in them last fall when I was ripping the vines off the fence and was fine. I'm glad I was the one to get the poison ivy, though, instead of Augie.

In a less strenuous project, Gretchen and I tore up an ugly corner of the lawn and made a flower bed. The rose bush in the back we transplanted from the flower bed up front (more on that in a minute). It was next to the driveway and wasn't really safe. Last year, Augie grabbed it barehanded. Somehow he didn't get hurt, but it needed to move. We also transplanted some daffodils and tulips that were growing in the back yard next to the neighbor's garage. Gretchen went and snatched a couple of mums from her dad, and planted some day lillies and alliums she had acquired. The landscaping timber we re-purposed. It was lining the front flower bed and the one fence line out back. It worked quite well. I finally found a new knob for that faucet and hung a hose holder. A little mulch and the project was done.

Last summer before we bought the house, we noticed there were tiger lilies growing behind the garage. The area was crudely cornered by a couple of pieces of timber. So this spring I buried the timber and framed in the flower bed. Gretchen also planted some begonias to go with the one stray hyacinth that was growing among the lilies. A little bit of mulch and the bed looks good.

Here is the aforementioned front flower bed. I like it because it's shaped like a seven. This was another two season project. Last fall I ripped out all the stumps and roots that were growing in it. And Gretchen helped me take out some of the white landscaping rocks that were there. The stumps and roots were horrible, but those rocks were probably a bigger pain in the ass. There are still a lot of rocks in the soil, but we did the best we could. We transplanted more of the daffodils from the back yard and threw in some lilies. Gretchen hasn't found a fall flower for the bed yet, but she's looking. Most of the edgers lining the driveway were already there. I pulled them all out and set them up properly last fall. This month, I found a few more at Menard's that were similar, but not exactly the same, and finished it off. A little bit of mulch and things are looking a lot less drab.

The last project I have finished is the awkward railing that lined the back patio. It was getting rusty, as you can see, and a couple of the footings were broken, making it wobbly. We had decided we didn't really like it, so...

... out it came. It actually opens up the yard quite a bit. It will make it a lot easier to mow around the patio, and Roscoe will hopefully stop peeing on the patio (fingers crossed). So that's it for now. I would still like to frame in the mailbox out front. Gretchen planted one of her mums behind the post. Her dad also bought some trees from the county, so once those are in, we'll have a tree to plant out front, too. Sometime in the near future, perhaps this fall, we'll probably take down the chain link fence out back and put in a wooden fence so we can trap those vines in the woods. I'd also like to put a bush or two in between the window wells on the north side of the house because I can't get in there with the mower. The grandma bushes out front are staying ... for now.