THE FINAL PLANTDOWN!

The final phase of our landscaping overhaul has come and gone. Below is a documented tale of this epic event, made awesomer if viewed as a montage in tandem with "The Final Countdown" by Europe. There is no way we could have gotten this done without Caitlin and Jon Sloop, who were fantastic to work with throughout the process. Can't recommend them enough--Green Light Custom Homes. This particular weekend, we teamed up and worked side by side Catlin and Jon to get an amazing amount of work done. Lots of photos, so let's get to it!

Nellie and Ludo are ready for action.

Notice the brownness of the grass. Not just neglect, this dead lawn was achieved with several doses of roundup, which will likely result in children with extra appendages. After the grass was good and dead, I beat it back further with the weedwacker before the planting began.

Side yard before.

With Caitlin's guidance, we plotted out the location of each plant according to her vision.

Jon and Caitlin on a Friday with all our plants in tow. Overall our goal was to use plants that would be low-maintenance and or native to North Carolina.

The plants are small now, but should really take off in the next few years to fill out the yard.

Caitlin was great about taking the time to select and plot out locations based on water, aesthetic, and sun-needs.

The planting areas along the left-fence and inside the triangle be for veggies, but we already have 3 blueberry bushes in the ground. SCIENCE FACT: Blueberry bushes require pine bark mulch because regular mulch changes the pH of the soil in a way that makes it difficult for blueberries to thrive.

It's really amazing how far this space has come in just a few months.

I got a fancy new phone so get ready for lots of panoramic shots in future blog posts. Click the pictures to view larger versions.

Nellie's friend, Ariel, came by and was a huge help on Saturday.

Another set of hands totally increased productivity. Thanks, Ariel!

Front yard progress.

Caitlin (mastermind behind our landscaping project) planting one of the tall grasses in front.

Ludo was less than thrilled with our weekend adventure as it did not involve any ball-throwing or doggy play-dates.

Again--these plants should really fill in in a few years time, but already look great.

I'm pretty stoked about the rosemary bushes flanking the front steps. Other herbs for picking on my way into the kitchen from work include thyme, chives, sage, lavender, and oregano. We also have more sage, thyme, and marjoram growing in the back yard.


Front-left planted.


Front-right planted.


Now, mulching forever.


Enter the dump truck of mulch. I'm still amazed at how much mulch got moved in a few days time.


For each plant, we dug holes and mixed a few shovel-fulls of compost into the soil. Luckily, we've had pretty steady rain since planting so we haven't had to do a lot of manual watering.

So much mulch.

And here are some final shots of the front.

In the back, Caitlin made a nice little path of river rocks for water to follow in the event of heavy rain. All plants in this area are also suited to larger volumes of water and eventually the plan is to have a rain barrel in this corner next to the deck. There's also a significant amount of drainage under the ground here, which Jon tied into the gutter system to divert it from the foundation.

Back yard planted--we spread the remaining compost out on the lawn for the grass that we planted a few weeks later.


The grass will grow around these blue stone pavers. A metal barrier was put into separate the grass from the natural area.

Baby grasses.

In between the poured concrete pavers, we planted creeping-thyme that will fill in the gaps.

Under the pergola.

The next weekend Nellie and I got busy planting grass and veggie seeds for our fall garden.

We decided to stir up the dirt/compost in the lawn area to give the grass something to take root in.

Buying a bale of hay is like instant happiness for me. It smells like fall and hay rides.

Grass seed for some reason has green dye on it which really gave a new meaning to the term "green thumb."

To come: follow-up pictures of our planting beds and "lawn." Both have taken off like gang busters since the seeds went down.