So, when you buy a house in the fall and move in during the winter guess what remains a total mystery? The yard. The now-overgrown, not well maintained, chaotic mess of a yard.
Lest this get too rant-y, here are the things we really like about our outdoor space:
1. We have a nice deck. It's big enough to accommodate our patio furniture and grill with a little room to spare. It's in pretty decent condition too. A power-washing and re-staining should be all we need to do in the near future.
2. The flower beds in our front yard. We have two well-established (albeit, overgrown) flower beds on either side of our front stoop (I have a love/hate relationship with that word, btw...stoop. stoop. stoop.) which are currently a disorderly mess of tiger lilies and crazed ground cover. What's great is that they're a good size, plenty of potential for changing up the layout in there and the boundaries are already well-established by pretty classic brick paving stones.
3. We have a shed. We love our shed. Our shed loves us. Seriously though, we don't have to keep the lawn mower or the smoker or the grill in the garage. Win.
4. Lots of space! For a pretty typical neighborhood lot, we have plenty of open green space. For now, it's main purpose is as room for Arley to roam. We have dreams of a picnic table or even a fire pit, though.
Here's what we're up against in our battle to achieve yard zen:
1. Random flowers everywhere. It's great that the previous owners planted a ton of perennials. It's not as awesome that they pop up next to the shed, along the fence, in the garden, next to the house, aaaaannnd in the flower beds.
2. Weeds on weeds on weeds. No one was diligently keeping these rowdy little buggers in their place. We've been waging a weak uphill battle since the spring. It doesn't help that our opponents can grow about a foot overnight.
3. Dead things. As far as we can tell we don't have zombies (whew). What we do have is a large dead bush in our front yard. I managed to hack the smaller limbs off so we can mow near it, but it still looms are gray and sad at the front of our yard. It's got a date with a chainsaw eventually.
4. Bald patches. We're not yet old enough to experience these personally. Our yard is not as fortunate, though. Some of them seem to be of the long-term variety while others we acquired when someone else's movers may or may not have backed into our yard as they turned their truck around. Ugh.
This summer hasn't seen a lot of progress in the yard, but now we know what we're up to for next year! Any yard care secrets are very welcome : )