Curb Appeal

Over the past month or so, we have made steps to dramatically improve the curb appeal of our home.  Our yard was never very pretty, but over the past few months it was probably one of the worst yards in the entire neighborhood.  We knew that we were going to have it redone, so we didn't want to waste any time maintaining it.  Here is an actual picture of what our "grass" (I use the term "grass" VERY loosely here) looked like:

Honestly, this was one of the greener sections.

We had a major drainage problem in the front yard.  When it would rain, we would end up with a moat in front of our house.  This was great for keeping out bandits and evil doers, but it wasn't very attractive.  So, we brought in a landscaping company (thanks to Adam at The Natural Accent for the beautiful work!) to till up our entire yard, grade it, fix our swale and lay zoysia.

For the past couple of weeks, I have spent many, MANY hours out in the yard digging holes, moving dirt around, planting plants, mulching, etc.  Here are a few before and after photos.  These pictures aren't great because I took them on an incredibly hot day when the grass was really thirsty.  After we water it, it greens up very quickly.  I'll have to take more pictures when it's nice and watered.

Our pitiful yard

New sod and beds

After

Ruby lorapetalum, knockout roses, purple pixie lorapetalum, firepower nandina, dwarf gold thread cypress

Before - you can see the big brown patch where our old Bradford pear used to be

After

Before

After

Japanese maple, camellia, gardenia and azalea

My gardenias and azaleas have already bloomed.  The gardenias smelled heavenly as you approached our front door.  The Japanese maple should only get 6 to 8 feet in diameter, so it should make a beautiful addition to the front of our home.

The previous owners had planted 2 bizarre, unwieldy honeysuckle bushes on both sides of the sidewalk in front of the columns.  They were awful.  I was so glad to replace them with Green Spire Euonymus.

Two super cute lawn ornaments

My beautiful girl eating enjoying the new grass

I also planted a lot of plants (rhododendron, azaleas, hydrangeas and a few others) around the back of the house.  I'll take pictures of those soon.  I can't wait for all my plants to grow and bloom. 

We plan to have Adam and his crew lay sod on the left side of our yard in the next few weeks.  I have a few plants that I'm going to put on that side of the house as well (Texas quince, barberry, crepe myrtle, blueberries).  Luckily, a nursery nearby was having a ridiculously awesome sale and I got a TON of plants at 90% off.  I also got this enormous wooden hutch for $35.80 (90% off of $358).  I'll have to post a picture later.

We also plan to eventually paint the shutters and door of our home black.  We're not huge fans of the muted blue color, and some other homes in our neighborhood look very classy with black shutters and doors.  That probably won't happen any time soon, though.