When You Just Can't Justify Staying Indoors

I'm the last person to do yard work. I usually let my lawn go for a week and a half (much to the horror of my perfectly manicured neighbors), and forget landscaping.

Lets not even mention the backyard.

But it was a beautiful day and so I determined to go outside and try to wrestle some small corner of my overgrown "gardens" under control.

Here's the thing. The nice family who lived here before me either had unlimited time, to maintain the landscaping, or unlimited money, to pay someone else to do so.

The only way I can convince myself to do this instead of sewing is to take before and after photos in which I can verify my progress. So here they are. This little bit of order took me three hours.

Before

After

Before

After

Look! You can see the rocks now! Still needs a lot of work.

My goal is to make this as minimally maintenance requiring as possible. This is going to mean removing a lot of bushes and hard work. Ugh. I put down newspaper under the rocks. Supposedly this will keep plants from putting down strong roots. I just don't know how often I will need to replace the newspaper. Every five years, great! Every 6 months, not so great. I heard a rumor once that newspapers take 20 years to degrade underground. Here's hoping!