Flower Bed Makeover

So, since we've moved into our house, our front flower bed has been driving us crazy. It was not so cute to begin with, just 3 spirea bushes, an ugly old evergreen bush, and a magnolia tree (which I love). Not exactly well taken care of before we moved in, after 2 years of us totally neglecting it, the spirea bushes looked bad, the evergreen bush was half dead, there were 2 walnut trees growing in the middle, and even the magnolia was starting to look a little ragged.

Some pictures, just to illustrate:

Overgrown spirea...

...half-dead evergreen with walnut tree...

...overgrown magnolia...

...the total package. Not so cute!

So, Memorial Day weekend (after getting back from our relaxing trip to Hannibal) Josh and I decided to tackle the front eyesore... I mean, flower bed. Josh went after the evergreen tree with a pitchfork and a tiller, while I gave the bushes a good hacking...er, trim. After one trip to Westlake's for loppers (that walnut tree just wasn't coming down with pruners), we had a pretty good start. Unfortunately, it started pouring down rain Memorial Day evening, so we couldn't get finished. But, in all honesty, it already looked way better, with just the evergreen gone, the bushes trimmed, and the magnolia cut back a little.

The bushes still look a little ragged... when they're done blooming this fall I'm going to cut them way back because they get new growth from old branches. So, after I cut the old branches off, they don't really have such a good shape!

Josh's arch-nemesis, the evergreen bush, is gone... though, it didn't go easily! The magnolia looked sooo much better afterwards, too.

Not done, but much improved whole-package!

Most of you know our schedules, so we definitely didn't have another weekend to dedicate to our flower bed, so the rest had to get done in bits and pieces, as we had time.

One day I speed planted the flowers we bought because I had a spare hour...

...and eventually we found time to mulch them and put in a (fake) brick border. And that's the finished product! At least, as finished as it's going to be!

Eye-sore no more!

Anyway, it was quite the project, and more work than either of us expected, really. We still want to do a little more (like mulch around the bushes). We ran out of mulch after covering the tree & flowers, so we had to buy more. Those bags are still sitting in the garage, waiting for Josh to have a free hour. But I think it looks spectacular, and I so appreciate Josh's help with the mulch, border, and evergreen bush! He was out pounding in the border at like 9:00 one night because it was the only free time he/we had!

And what would a post be without a picture of Elena? Here she is "helping" us mulch... or, running over our new lights that line our walkway...