So this spring brings much work! We are near the finish line of a 7yr project  most of the reason is we have been doing all the work and as you may know landscaping is NOT cheap so we do things when we can.

Here is where we were this past fall, i should have had this under a gardening thread but it was under home.
it has the very before pics from when we bought the home!

https://www.itsahuskything.com/t11290p20-the-bealer-s-2013-2014-home-projects

this spring our focus is finishing up the 2 new garden beds in the front yard. need to do pics still
i hope to plant this coming weekend, in CO you have to wait till mothers day or just after to plant, we still have the freak chance of snow!!!


these are some of the plants i got last weekend.


go some lava rock this weekend to do a rock garden in the front by our steps, the bed in this pic. i have built up a U shape hump to give it some height. it was raining when we finished so no pics as its covered up now.

I decided i really want a pond in the back yard, i had picked up a free one a while back and realized it was not the shape i want so i got a new used one on thur.


love my Element!!!

We are also having sod put in the back yard, they came and did all the line work on sat (there was no way we could do that our selves) as Ken and I put the pond in. they will come back this weekend for the tilling and sod. then i think we can say the back yard is 90% done. we just have to do the areas up along the house.
here are pics of the back yard and pond!

before of the back







digging the pond, my hands hurt today





pond and sprinkler lines






lines buried


pond in

so we will keep moving and i hope by this sunday we have a green back yard and i will start on the design around the pond.
Stay tuned!

You guys make me feel so unaccomplished with our gardening and yard. Lol.

Looks great so far Jen! I'm sure it'll look amazing once you guys get it totally finished.

Looks Great! I'm with Ashleigh, ugh, I could have a beautiful yard, I guess I'm happy that I have a green yard and not the typical brown yard (because of our drought). Love the pond and the shape of it Jen, have to ask does your dogs like water? Miya would end up in it everyday if I had one, lol.

Can't wait to see it all finished. My husband wants a fish pond so bad since I won't let him overfill my big aquarium with what he wants. I can hear the dogs now, 'soo....you can dig in the yard but I can't?'

TwisterII wrote:

Can't wait to see it all finished. My husband wants a fish pond so bad since I won't let him overfill my big aquarium with what he wants. I can hear the dogs now, 'soo....you can dig in the yard but I can't?'

Listen to the dogs Ami and Archer watched me diggin and then proceeded to do their own...with gleeful abandon

Jenn - your yard is coming beautifully. We have to wait for memorial day, also...so frustrating with 78° today.

S&J are not fans of water, they go in up to their knees and that's it, i don't think they will go in the pond, this yr im starting with plants and will see how it goes, still need to buy a pump and all.

our friend is doing the yard for us and has 5 huskies, he kept asking S&J to help dig but they wanted no part in helping, Jack was bossing them around though and it was funny!

Ashleigh and Renee, remember 7yrs in the making!!! you have plenty of time to have a great yard

Jenn, your yard is looking awesome!!! I love it all. That flagstone is just the perfect touch and is going to make everything pop when it's completed. I can't wait to see what you do around the pond!

Jenn - The bones are lookin' good! I can't wait to see the finished pictures. A deck AND a pond. Two of my fantasies. I like the shape, too.

Nice job, Jenn! I have seen updates here and there on FB when I pop on now and then. Wow, 7 years! I have been crazy busy with our landscaping these past couple months and I am loving how our landscaping looks right now. I have taken loads of pics (before and after) but have absolutely no time to go through all the pictures, upload and start a thread chronicling our new landscaping adventures...kids.

WE HAVE A BACK YARD!!!!!
So i will try to place these in order sorry if some are out of order. Please check out my link at the start of this thread to see what everything looked like when we bought our house, we had NOTHING but a dead tree and a burning bush in the front of the house, and lots of weeds and rocks.

We had a 1 week rain delay from my first post and the grass was put in on the 16th of May.

all the grass


Tilled up




rolling it out


done!










the following weekend i finished around the pond.

Picked up all the stone i hoped i would need


I had just enough! I want larger river rock to go over the edge, i used my extra to just show that. Waiting on the pump to show up and need to shop for water plants


got our gas fire pit in the mail and put that up with our new stools.


We are now just about ready to host our first BBQ!!!

now back to the front of the house, as the guys were working on the grass i finished the last 2 beds in the front of the house.
Ken just "happened" to not be around to help with those or the finishing of the pond, no worries i love the work.

front bed before


never thought it would take so long to find a rock patterned i liked!




Done

also installed a drip line in for the plants.

front side bed midway, forgot the before


Done

also installed a drip line for the flowers

Now for random photos of the finished yard, my poor burning bush and weeping mulberry tree got hit from that last snow storm and killed all the buds, they are still brown but i see new life growing on them, so i have hope.

front of house from street






close up










if there is a plant you want a name for just ask, i have tags on just about everything, but as you can see that would take forever for me to list here!

I'm so happy with how i took a vision in my mind and got everyone on board to make it happen, it might have taken 7yrs but that's ok, i LOVE all of it. Now to just sit back, pull weeds and watch things grow.

Oh and i got my veggie garden planted but no pics yet.

Everything looks amazing Jenn!!! Wow!!! The green color from the lawn just makes everything around it pop, looks so good! I LOVE how you did the pond area! What is in between the rock? Is that DG or something else? Looks amazing! I bet the dogs love that lawn!

It's called squeege, smooth round pebbles. Feels great to walk barefoot on with the smooth rock. Sierra is loving the grass, jack still prefers to sunbathe on the deck.

Oh wow, that sounds cool. I'm not sure I've ever seen it before. I have a lot of areas I coulda used something like that.

On your side yard, front, I love that silverish ground cover with white flowers that cascades over the edges, looks very cool

Seriously Jenn, you guys did an amazing job!

Jenn, Wow, everything looks so good. So I guess I'll have breakfast in your back yard before I zip over to Jimmy's place for lunch, lol. You have such a wonderful yard!! Great job.

Looks awesome. Can't wait until your pump comes in for the pond and you can get your water plants. I've not done any work with water plants so I'm curious what kind you can support out where you are.

Artic_Wind wrote:

On your side yard, front, I love that silverish ground cover with white flowers that cascades over the edges, looks very cool
Seriously Jenn, you guys did an amazing job!

that's called snow in summer, i LOVE it, spreads like mad for areas where you want it to.

Breakfast on the patio sounds nice to, everyone come on over

the pump showed up yesterday i put it in this morning, we are up and running now! there is a water plant sell on sunday i may go and check out. i want some tall irises and grasses for the ledges and a water lily, i need to replicate my leg tattoos i want to do some planter boxes with climbing plants for the back area and a small stool in the corner.  there is so much i can do around the pond, it will just keep building as the summer goes i think.

thanks everyone, like i said im so happy to see the vision come to life. i enjoyed every cut, bruise, sore muscle and sweat that went into all of it.

Turned out amazing. Make me want to buckle down and get more done at my house! Inspiration!

Just now catching up and wow, Jenn, it looks awesome! Kudos to you, you must be so proud...I know I am and it's not even my yard! So when can I come over and hang out in your awesome backyard?! While I don't have a plant question, is the black/white husky your foster? Scratch that, I do have a plant related question. Are the weeping tree and large bush (possibly the burning bush you mentioned?) in the front yard that look...shall we say "less than alive" just dormant at the time of the photo?

Jenn - your landscaping is amazing. Everything looks beautiful - can't wait to see the plants in the pool and see everything as it matures.

Val,
yes that was our foster ivan, the one that jumped the 5ft fence twice!
As for the trees, i mentioned in the tread that the late snow over mother's day killed the buds on them the big round one in the back is our burning bush, the weeper is a fruitless mulberry tree. They seem to be alive and slowly recovering. I love weeping trees, i have the weeping birch thats small in the back yard. Wish we had more room for trees.

Amy im excited to watch it all grow and fill in, bout 3yrs from now we will be good. Still working the kinks out of the sprinkler lines, some brown spots not from pee. Think its ready go mow now. Also been picking out dandelions from the seam lines

Everything is growing and Sierra is eating all my zucchini, squash, and cucumber plants  and she got a hold of the Water Hyacinth in the pond and ate it (not safe for dogs i found out)

some updated pics.


i put in on the left a iris Louisiana, and the small one in front is a water snowflake, on right  is a cattail and the tall green thing is a saururus cernus. the floating thing was the hyacinth. only know cause i still have receipt with me for all the names.
need to get some duckweed for the top now and my water lily


this is in front of the house by the steps, blooming now.


snow in summer going crazy and the Russian sage is growing, the bushes in between are also regrowing


filling back in, week or so from blooming i think, and my weeping mulberry is leafing


state flower, Columbine

now to the back

yarrow is blooming and the front red flower is new, tried a few versions of lavender and they never come back so i gave up.


full view of the corner bed, want to try a butterfly bush in the bear left. my iris's have no shoots on them, not sure if that late snow killed them or not, im sad about it. giant lilac in the middle, started as a small twig from costco!


my shade corner from hell, dogs tromping nothing growing, almost giving up. but my miss kim lilac does well, on the right. the new plants around it has small white flowers on them, will they live or will they die...


other side with my weeping birch and more shade ground cover that is not spreading. i really hate this bed, its my least fav of everything. i know what i should do redo all the soil but that sounds like hell, and i just put new mulch down this yr. maybe next  yr...


raised bed #1, on left basil, cucumber, cherry tomato, to the right herbs of all kinds, and my strawberries that i never get to eat.


raised bed #2, Sierra's salad bar.  it had cucumbers, zucchini, squash and cherry tomatoes, tomatoes are the only thing untouched by her

once things start blooming i will do close ups. all this rain is driving me mad.

oh and my inside pride

its about 7rys old and it blooms every spring

Jenn - everything looks lovely! You need a Pawz Away outdoor rock - or 2 to keep this puppies out of your garden areas! Or even the whole yard max system...so much work to be trompled and eaten by pooches

Your poinsettia blooms like mine. Mine is only 3 and blooms to an extent every year that I've had it. It's getting tall and lanky. I haven't the heart to prune it to see if I can get it to bush out better.

Jenn, im afraid to do any thing to it, don't want to kill it! i do knock off one section of new branch every now and then carrying things up and down the steps
being in the corner of the steps i like it tall and out of the way.

Jenn, your pond is just lovely. Quite odd, but many of your flowers I have too, that grow wild, hmmmm. Interesting, I wonder if the former owners of my property had flower beds, although I am talking former owners of more than 20 years ago.......