Spring Fever

So, this weekend we were officially diagnosed with spring fever...the antidote involved 3 yards of cedar mulch, a pallet of flag stone and a lot of sweat. The weather cooperated though...it was supposed to rain all weekend, but it was sunny and 78 degrees with little breezes that cooled us as we worked to transform our front yard.

We had so much fun! Brian became quite competent with a hammer and chisel. He made about 50 bricks out of the flagstone to edge some of our flower beds...and all those years of putting puzzles together really helped as we pieced the flagstone together around the rest of the flower beds (Brian really has a good eye for where things go!). We planted some beautiful little gardenia bushes, pink indian hawthorne, begonias and some decorative grasses in the large flower bed. Between the clay soil, tree roots and fire ants, we had quite the planting adventure!

The funniest part was when we decided to test out the sprinkler system after we had finished with everything. Now, you need to realize, that we have never turned it on since we got the house...we thought that it only would water the flower beds...imagine our surprise when little sprinkler heads started popping up all over the front and back lawns! They had all been buried, so most of them brought up pieces of the lawn with them...and one even lifted a three foot piece of flagstone all by itself! Luckily, that piece of flagstone was the only one that had covered any of the sprinkler heads. We also had a geyser on the front walkway when the front flower bed sprinkler heads started up - one of them was missing the top piece and it looked like old faithful was erupting beside our front door (luckily, it only involved an $0.89 Home Depot run). The rest of the sprinkler system seems to work perfectly...what a blessing - no more hauling gallon jugs all over the yard to water the potted plants! We'll include some before and after shots so you can see the fruits of our labor...pun intended!

We are going to wait until the fall (or early next year) to do the back yard since we want to use the old brick we took out of the front yard to make raised vegetable garden beds. Our little tomato and bean plants are thriving in pots in the sunny back yard, so we are hoping for a bumper crop to share with family and friends. :-)

Also, the countdown until our nieces and nephew come has begun - we are planning some fun stuff to do together when they visit over their Spring Break - we can't wait!

Here are some of the before pictures:

These are the after pictures: