Backyard Bliss - Progress

Friends, I would like to take a moment to recognize Mr. Gardener.

Not only is he a steller husband. (And in my opinion, hot like a muffin straight out of the oven - you need not feel inclined to agree with me there. ;) He is spoken for, after all.)

But he has spent a good deal (several Saturdays, most of the Fourth, he had the 5th of July off, etc.) of time working on our backyard (as I mentioned previously).

He tore out the posts from the old, hazard-to-humanity deck, including the concrete. 

He pulled up all the pavers. (These just don't work with our lovely, heavily rooted cherry tree.) They are going to live at my parent's house.

He took out the little dogwood tree. Let me explain. We are not tree killers. I am a Virginian, so I do appreciate my dogwood. But the previous owners planted it pretty much underneath the gargantuan cherry tree. And it was just struggling there. It couldn't get the light it needed, nor the space, so it had started growing in a crazy configuration and it just wasn't going to thrive there.

So here's some of the before (above).

And the after (below - 2 pictures).

It looks similar, but look at the gone pavers. The gone weird built-in bed thing they had going on (lower right hand corner). Random trash they left behind (under the hazardous deck) gone.

He also repaired, powerwashed, and stained the fence.

Gold star, Mr. Gardener!

Lots of hours of manpower in the heat and numerous-I-lost-count trips to Lowe's later, we're getting closer to Backyard Bliss.

The deck people start on our deck today, too!

Wood for the deck. They delivered on Friday. Fortunately, our neighbor is nice and let us use her extra parking spot in the meantime.

For additional perspective, I will show you a bit of what our front yard used to look like:

Yeah...tree stump.

Weeds.

Oh and a mess of mint in our yard.

I love mint. 

But, let me tell you, for you aspiring gardeners out there. Mint is supremely aggressive. And invasive. It grows and grows and grows, like nobody's business.

It's great if you can't grow anything else. I can almost guarantee, you, too, can grow mint. 

However, that being said, grow it in a pot. And don't let the growth touch the ground or it will root there and spread like wildfire and kill off anything in its way. Grass included. And your neighbor's grass.

So, just don't do it. Don't plant it in your yard. Contain it. 

(That goes for bamboo, too. Fair warning.)

So...old yard (and a local bunny - fewer of those around now - the fox population has increased. Circle of life, people.)

New yard. 

I think it looks leaps and bounds better.

Grass is a little brown because the "nurse" grass (seasonal and intended to help the perennial grass get started) is starting to grow.

Mr. Gardener LOVES his grass. It is like his child. I could write a whole post just describing his love for the grass.

Hence part of the reason I started calling him Mr. Gardener here. ;)