Landscaping: Might as well give us our own HGTV show

Hub and I have been working hard on the landscaping in front of our house. When we bought the house, it's not like it was bad, it was sort of a blank slate. There were a row of small, out of control shrubs under the living room window (the center of the house), a line of weird looking filler plants by the fence and a landscaping box with overgrown weeds/grass between the two oak trees in the middle of our yard. That was the extend of the previous owners landscaping.

Also, the grass was a mess. There was one whole section that was nothing but sandy soil. We found out from our neighbors that the previous owner parked his truck IN the yard, which killed the grass. So we basically had our work cut out for us.

I am not an outdoorsy person at all. I never did any landscaping or yard work. It just wasn't a priority at our house. I think once I planted some watermelon in the backyard and it turned out to just be the world's smallest inedible watermelon, so big time farming FAIL right there. I have successfully killed several houseplants and almost killed our palm. That's the extent of my landscaping and planting experience.

We started the lawn transformation by bagging what seemed to be 5 years worth of oak tree leaves. Forty bags of leaves. I mean that's just insane and uncalled for. I cursed the previous owners names MANY times. I think bagging leaves may be the thing I hate most in life.

The next step was digging out the old shrubs and their extensive root system. Hub did most of that by spending an entire Saturday with a maddock hacking the roots apart Paul Bunyan style. Then he tilled the ground and I raked up the grass, handpicking the grass that wouldn't easily rake. Probably not the most functional way to do this, but again: landscaping newbie.

So next we decided to buy some sod to fill in the gaps where the guy parked his truck. sod is very cheap, like $1.00 per square (I thought it would be more) but it's also VERY VERY VERY MESSY. Especially St. Augustine grass (what we got) which has a ton of sandy soil underneath it. One night we went out to get the sod before dinner -- I know, what were we thinking -- and because we were both tired and hungry, we were very snippy with each other. So we get to Lowes and buy the sod, and Hub says to Dave (our friend in Lawn & Garden who we didn't even know before we started this project, is how much we've been to Lowes), "Hey could we have someone help us?" and Dave said, "uhhh...um....yeah....just. let me call someone?"

We started loading it ourselves. In addition to being messy, guess what else sod is? HEAVY. Here is me, weakling that I am, loading sod into the back of Hub's SUV. After 20 pieces (20 of 80), I got pissed, marched over to Dave and angrily asked, "Are we going to have any help loading this sod, because LOOK AT ME!" as I referenced my filthy hands, arms and face. Dave called someone to help us and about a minute later another friendly Lowes employee walked over to the car. "How's it going?" he said. Although I know it was a rhetorical question, I answered, "It's been MUCH BETTER." Then I got into the car and let them do the rest.

Now that I read that, I guess I sort of overreacted. That seems sort of princessy of me, but guess what? That's what happens when we work BEFORE we eat!

Anyway, long story made a little less long, that sod wasn't enough, so we had another 150 pieces delivered. Good call this time, we got it delivered and laid ourselves with no problems.

After all that drama, we were ready to lay down tarp, plant our trees and mulch. We finished all that this weekend.

The plants we picked out were so awesome. We originally just bought two trees, but then decided it was too big of an area and needed a couple more. We ended up getting clearance trees from Lowes: one azalea for $19 and a crepe myrtle for $10! They look amazing in the yard and will have beautiful flowers in the spring.

I can't finish this story without photos, so I'll complete our landscaping saga tomorrow.