Update: Thanks so much for all the kind words and general awesomeness on yesterday’s post. You guys rock my socks.
Ladies and gentlemen, we actually have a backyard. Well, we still need to get some grass going on, but three phases of digging and transplanting and weeding (here’s phase one, and here’s phase two) have definitely turned our Jumanji-esque backyard into a nice clearing for Burger & Clara to run around in… once that aforementioned grass makes itself at home. And we still have a ton of giant trees on the side and back of our lot to keep it from feeling too open and stark, which seems to be the sweet spot for us.
But enough jabbering, the pics do all of the explaining anyway:
As you can see, we leveled the second 15′ wide planting bed, and dug up the rest of the borderline-insane amounts of liriope that encroached on the area that we’d rather just seed and mow for a nice lush little swatch o’ grass. We also brought in some dirt from the back of our lot (free!) in an attempt to level everything out to get it ready for grass, although we’ll add a little top soil when we seed just to be sure we’re giving those little grass seeds all the reason in the world to take root.
We also did some tree-maintenance in the form of cutting these two giant vines that are cannibalizing an old oak tree (they’re so thick and crazy that during Hurricane Irene we worried the extra weight of the vines and the dense leafy branches would pull the tree down on our house). You can see which tree they’re on if you scroll up to the before and after pics above (it’s that crazy leafy-looking mass hugging the tree next to the corner of the house on the right).
Reciprocating saw + John = buh-bye oak-strangling vine. We actually heard from a certified landscaping expert that we hired back in April thanks to a Living Social deal (more on that here) that it would be best to remove any vines from all of the trees on our property, just to keep the tree in the best possible health and not have to worry about them choking the trees or making them fall in a storm. And you apparently just have to cut a chunk out from the base so the roots can’t keep sending nutrients up through the vine and it should slowly die off (then you can yank it off the tree if you don’t like the look of a bunch of dead leaves hugging your tree like a beer koozie). We’ll keep you guys posted on how that goes…
While the reciprocating saw was out we also used it to cut out some old roots (from trees that were cut down decades ago) that would have made for some lumpy not-level grass…
… and we also had another brush with nature. Although this time it wasn’t a tiny snake, it was a baby squirrel. Cue the collective “aww.” This picture doesn’t do his insanely cute size any justice, but take my word for it, this is totally one of those baby animals that you’d see on Pinterest and let out a gasp at his sheer adorable-ness. He was smaller than my hand and quite wide-eyed and bushy-tailed.
But back to the yard progress. At the end of another 3 hour span (aka: another Clara nap), we had completed our third and final phase of bushwhacking and finally have reached ready-to-seed status. Woot!
It’s so funny because every time I turn the corner to walk into the backyard from the patio on the side of the house, I think I’m going to be met with the view in the top pic, so it never fails to make me jump when I see the cleared out view from the bottom pic instead.
It definitely looks kind of stark now, but we know when we get a nice lush carpet of green grass going on that it’ll be awesome and open without feeling too cleared out since our lot is almost an acre that’s chock fulla wooded area on both sides of the house along with most of the area behind the house. So this will just be one open and grassy area for Burger and Clara to have fun in while various woodland creatures can do their thing everywhere else.
Oh and here’s a really great example of how a giant planting bed can block your whole house from the back. And then after a few days of work, it can be history. Poof. Begone house-blocking bush.
So much better! And I can’t even explain how happy we are to see the old brick paths again (so charming!). After nearly two years of staring at about two-bricks-worth of them while the rest was completely covered in leg-tickling liriope, they’re a sight for sore eyes (and itchy liriope-groped legs).
So there you have the latest on our backyard progress. Of course we’ll share seeding/grass-growing pics whenever we can, but we’re pretty psyched that this whole area just took a few pretty serious (but totally doable!) days of work to result in some pretty major changes.
Do you guys like to tackle your outdoor projects in phases? Do you dream about having a certain landscaping setup when you move in (like we did back in 2010) but then take a few years to get your momentum up (we’ve almost been in our house for two whole years, so it’s about time for this!!). It’s amazing how time can fly when you’re putting off yard work…
It’s like cutting 6 inches off of long stringy hair. Looks and feels so much better!!
We had a similarly overgrown acre yard when we moved in. Have you thought about renting a bob-cat or a tractor for a day? It goes SO much faster! I spent days ripping out gardens and then we got a bobcat and it was done in a matter of minutes.
Sounds like fun!
xo,
s
Good job ! It looks so much better already ! And oooh, the baby squirrel !
It looks fantastic and really opens up the backyard! :-)
What kind of grass seed have you found to work well for you? Due to the trees that still exist, do you get much shade? We’re getting ready to do some grass planting as well but have a good amount of shade to deal with.
That sounds fun!!
xo,
s
we reseeded a large area of our yard two years ago with Pennington Tall Fescue Mix. It is the best grass in our yard by far that we want to dig everything else up and use this everywhere. It did great in sun and shade. We bought more this year to fill in some more areas and expand our lawn but could only find it at Home Depot. It is a very thick grass but it holds up great to high traffic (ie playing kids and animals) I don’t know why but the reviews online weren’t so great. Some people said it was weedy. We did have some weeds when it first started coming in but I am pretty certain it was from the topsoil not the seed. I did weed a lot at first but this summer was great. the thickness keeps the weeds out and it is very green and plush. It is the best looking part of our lawn. It is actually grass we like to roll around in with the kids and pets.
AMAZING difference. The after (even without grass) looks so much more polished.
p.s. Can’t wait for your book to come out … I totally understand your fear, but it looks so inviting. And a solid review from Publisher’s Weekly … looking forward to having a copy in my hot little hands (and my library!)
holy moley! What a transformation already!!
So are you seeding now or waiting for spring?
I’m in NC and trying to decide if it’s too late to put some more seed down, myself.
We’re trying now since its still pretty nice out. Will keep you posted!
xo,
s
Was wondering the same thing (well not for my personal information since apartment living = no yard) and interested how it turns out.
The best time to plant grass (especially in the South) is actually during cool weather. You do want to get it started before it frosts though. http://www.ces.ncsu.edu/depts/hort/consumer/quickref/lawns/renovating_existing.html
So much nicer! You guys are totally inspiring me with your yardwork–although we’re kind of working on an opposite project now, turning an expanse of lawn into an orchard and garden.
eeek! I think that vine is poison ivy! (the big vine form). Hope you guys aren’t allergic (I am very) and took precautions.
Thankfully it’s just some benign berry-bearing vine. Whew!
xo,
s
They aren’t white or greyish berries are they? Both poison oak and poison ivy will produce flowers and berries that are white in color. When I saw the photo I kind of worried that you had used a saw to cut into a poison ivy vine too.
Nope they’re red. The arborists told us its a type of holly.
xo,
s
Yard looking fantastic. The baby squirrel was sure adorable. We don’t have squirrels on our island and I really miss them.
AMAZING transformation, you guys! I’m an apartment-dweller, so sometimes just skip over the great-outdoors DIY posts, but this is incredible. Had to read the whole thing. Pictures are awesome. Congrats on your brand new back yard!
I’ve really enjoyed seeing your outside renovations come along, thank you for posts like this! That yard’s going to be great for Burger and Clara!
It looks amazing! I can’t believe it’s the same yard.
I kind of wondered when I got to the bit in your blog about you guys buying this house how you would make a yard work, with all that green clutter. Now I see it! I like to tackle projects all at once, but they tend to work themselves into segments anyway (usually over a few sessions over one day, or over a weekend).
Wow! That looks incredible! I bet the kids are going to LOVE that. I didn’t even think your house was that big from the outside, but now it looks much more like your first house, which I know you loved the exterior.
Next summer we are going to be working on a Dog Friendly back yard. We have a fence already but our plan is to transplant the lily’s out of there (apparently Lily’s are poisonous if a dog eats them) and install a brick pathway around the fence. They’re going to kill anything we put around the edges anyway so we mind as well embrace it and put some vintage bricks down or something. It will also take us a few years, but once we tear down the existing deck and move it we’ll have about 10 more feet of yard that will totally need to be regrassed and everything. Exhausted just thinking about it!
Looks great! We really need to trim up our outside and work on it. We have a lot of great landscaping from the previous owners, but that also means a lot of maintenance to keep it nice.
Congrats on the recovery of your yard! I just spent a week with my dad putting IN a lot of plants, and yes, we took it a bit at a time. And we learned to install the drip line feeders BEFORE covering the beds in dirt and mulch. Your dirt looks amazing — I live in the Rockies so my native dirt is clay and rocks.
Are you going to remove any or all of the path?
We think it’s cute for now but you never know where we’ll end up!
xo,
s
Cue collective sigh of relief!
We recently cut down a gigantic weeping cherry tree. It was so big that you literally could not see our house! It has made all the difference in the world.
The fact that you have lived there 2 years and are just now tackling the yard soothes my soul about our now 4 years later start on ours!
I love it!
We have some big plans for our yard in the spring. We’re kind of scared to transplant some of bushes around now since Texas has this funny weather thing where it’s a million degrees on second and then sleeting the next. Oh the joy of only having two seasons!
So, how are those Madonna arms coming along?
And yay! My gravatar finally worked!
Haha, still waiting!
xo,
s
While the landscaping progress is great, I just can’t help but get stuck on the 3 hour Clara nap :) So unfair, that girl sleeps like a rock star! I wish my almost 2 year old would do the same…maybe that’s why we can’t get any DIY projects completed???
It looks FANTASTIC…good job!
I know, right! Does Clara run beside John in the morning or something to wear that girl out?? :-) I just don’t remember my kidlets taking many 3 hour naps (but I sure enjoyed it when they did)
It definitely goes in phases! Some months we get half an hour, and then she has growth spurts and sleeps like crazy!
xo,
s
Looks great, can’t wait to see it filled with grass! That is a crazy-scary vine on that tree! I’d never know it wasn’t part of the tree!
Hoowee! Way better.
Such a huge difference! Your yard really looks great! I am in love with your brick path.
It looks so good! It makes me want to tackle my forest of a backyard, ok, it is only a small line of crazy trees. But, in my area, winter is coming fast, so it will probably be an early spring project.
Looks awesome! We have no yard to speak of so I’ll have to live vicariously through your projects for now. ;)
Looks fab! Way to put your back into it!
Hooray for you guys! I’ve spent what seems like my whole life beating back the woods around various houses we have lived in. It’s always so sad to see beautiful healthy trees eaten up by this or that vine; people seem to think it doesn’t hurt them but it does. A serious “pull down” session once a year makes a lot of difference. Doesn’t look like it from the picture, but that’s not poison ivy is it?
Nope it’s some type of berry-bearing holly.
xo,
s
Holy cow, those vines look like poison ivy. The airborne roots are a telltale sign. I learned about those the hard way. Be careful! There’s a saying.. “Hairy rope, don’t be a dope”
The yard looks great! What a great improvement! :)
That is amazing! I love how it looks now. I wish I had half of your motivation to get things done around my house. We’ve been in our house 1 year, and so far I painted the window trim in what is the toy room for now.
Your yard looks so amazing! Congrats on the progress! We are totally phase people. Of course we love the thought of *poof* it’s done, but taking everything a little at a time seems to work well for us. You have definitely inspired us to get busy!
Amazing!!! What a difference your hard work makes. We have the opposite problem. We moved into our house in the spring and the previous owners had NO plant. Nada, nothing. The grass was dead too. So we have slowly been adding plants that people have given us and we seeded the lawn. It makes a world of difference :)
wow.. I love your back yard. I live in Java – one o the most populous islands on earth. Having backyard is kind of luxurious thing for most of us.. I so envy you..
I love what you did with the paths. I remember walking down liriope choked paths as a child, hopping and zipping through with my knees high convinced that a snake or something was going to dart out of the bushy recesses and attack my ankles. Just looking at the before shots make me nervous, LOL.
I’ve been reading your blog for a couple of years and I honestly don’t remember seeing this angle of your house (the full back of the house). No idea it looked like that. Thanks for sharing!
And the pictures are amazing. Talk about totally transformed!
Looks one million times better!! :)
Shannon
Fabulously Vintage
Looks amazing! And slightly less confusing…
So much better! I bet it makes your yard feel so much bigger.
And Jumanji. I haven’t seen that in ages! That was one of my favorite movies growing up!
Wow! Way better than it was.
These kinds of projects are the best, since you can see immediate results from your hard work!
I’d much rather do outdoor projects than indoor ones. Heck, I even weed my parent’s flower beds when I go over to visit. I might secretly have a green thumb & I don’t know it yet.
It might look stark to you because you are used to the liriope jungle, but it looks great! Especially that shot of the back of your house where you can see the basement door.
You didn’t mention this, but your long time readers totally know you begged John to let you keep the baby squirrel as a pet!
Haha, he was so cute!!
xo,
s
That vine looks like poison ivy! Be careful, the vines contain urushiol even when the thing is dormant.
what a difference! nice job! do you have your Madonna arms, yet?
We basically ignored our yard (other than mowing the lawn and raking leaves) for the first 8 years we lived in our house. We renovated and added a bit of landscaping and a patio at that point. Then, the people who live behind us put a pool in at the beginning of this summer – our yard is so small that we needed to plant a row of leland cypress trees to block the view into their yard. My next door neighbor has done a ton of work on their yard over the past few summers, and it kind of makes us want to up our game a little. But, like you, we’ll take it in phases! Neither of us has a green thumb, and my husband is crazy allergic to poison ivy! I think due to privacy concerns, we’ll mostly have just a border of trees around the perimeter of our backyard, with more fun, colorful stuff in the front.
Wow that sounds like lots of work! Still waiting for my Madonna arms…
xo,
s
I’m amazed at all of your hard work–the change is huge! And that vine is INSANE! Oh my goodness.
Wow – it looks like an entirely new backyard! Great job!
Also – baby squirrels (or any baby animal for that matter) are the cutest things ever.
Wow! Clearing out the yard like that – doesn’t it almost feel like it’s been reorganized? :-) I dug up a lot of trees and small weeds from my backyard back in May and it made a world of difference!
I was inspired by you guys to make a New Year’s resolution to do at least one home improvement thing a month – and so far I’ve kept it! The yard clean-out was my May project: http://cupcakesandgumbo.blogspot.com/2012/06/may-fixes.html
Can’t wait to see what your yard will look like with new grass!
I wonder why grass wasn’t growing in the one are that was infront of the beds… where the moss is growing instead???
That’s an area we kind of best up over book shooting (it’s where we painted stuff so the grass was covered with cardboard and drop cloths. We hope when we reseed it’ll come back!
xo,
s
Wowie zowie! It looks like you got a whole new house! What a fabulous transformation. I LOVE that brick walkway, it is so charming!
Lots of grunt work, I’m sure, but well worth it!
Wow, it looks so different and well-taken care now. And besides aesthetics, I also think it is a lot safer. Call me paranoid, but I always think too many bushes and the like near basement and back doors are a bad idea (well, bad idea for us homeowners, maybe for burglars or psychos is their thing).