Landscaping: Phase II

Ray has been busy out in the yard this summer.  In the spring, he ripped out everything in the front of the house and started over - that was Phase I (click here to see Phase I).  Phase II involved the side yard and the backyard. 

 

Here's a before picture of the side of the house -

One of Ray's good friends, JP, came over to help rip everything out.  They were intense with their pickaxes.  There were some casualties - mostly worms, snakes, and mice - but I was completely fine with that. 

And here is the after.  The bushes have to grow up a little, but it looks so much better than the jungle that used to be growing on the side of the house.

Another part of Phase II involved setting up a play-set for James and his buddies!  Ray's dad got this play-set a few years ago from a coworker and he stored it for us.  They put it together and James is already enjoying the swing and the slide.

Phase II also included making a flower bed around the large oak tree in our front yard.  Ray planted day lilies and two butterfly bushes in a circular bed around the tree.

Finally, if you've driven by my house recently, you've no doubt noticed that the lawn is dead.  That's right - completely dead.  Ray killed the lawn early in July and I've been looking at a brown mess of a yard for the past several weeks.  BUT it is all in hopes of starting over.  This weekend, Ray is working on the new lawn and that will all be in Phase III.  For now, I'll show a picture of the hot mess that is our yard for this season -

I let James play in the mulch for the first time yesterday and he loved it.  He kept trying to eat the mulch and dirt and I kept saying, "Dirt is for playing, not eating."  But he didn't quite get it.  Instead, I'm pretty sure that he ate some dirt.