1. Took out and removed a crooked Hibiscus Tree from the front of my house and transplanted it into the back. I hacked the hell out of the roots and needless to say it still looks dead but there is some new green growth where the first set of branches split so it's alive, likely in major shock and might bot see an abundance of green until August :D
2. Replaced the Hibiscus in the front with a floweing Plum Tree. Really pretty pink flowers in the spring with purple foilage. Will grow to be about 20-25 feet mature with a nice span. Like my poor Hibiscus Tree, the Plum has yet to bloom but there's a lot of buds slowly showing up on the branches. We bought it back in early April and planted it it. It had no growth on it yet so I'm assuming it's been in shock and adjusting. I'm excited about this tree
3. Planted a bunch of Pennington "Pennsylvania mix and Scotts Full sun, Grass Seed throughout the back yard. Have been taking my Dogs out on a leash to go bathroom since early-mid April. Grass has done a good job of growing. Im generally pretty terrible at growing grass. This has been a success, In about a week I'll go and get Scotts Weed and Feed Turf Builder Plus to get rid of my clover (would make Bdeff dry), dandelions etc... and give me brown patches all over the yard :D
4. Planted an abundance of tulips, hyacinth, dandelions last fall and they all bloomed awesomly this spring.
5. Cut back all of the ornamental grasses and Butterfly bushes
6. have this stupid 4x4 section between my patio and fence gate that I couldn't find any use for, for years, so we went out and bought a nice big planter. I made a small concrete patio for it to sit on and threw a brick inside to weight it down (until we get top soil and whatever plant we throw in there. I threw down black plastic over the entire area and I had a bag of crushed red brick rock that I put in there. I need to get another bag but it looks really nice. It has this oriental "zen" feel to it that was a happy accident.
What's to come?
1. Ordered Weigela. I've never planted it before, but I have a corner in my backyard against my fence that badly needs something and this looked pretty. Here's a picture of what it should look like (I'll groom it better)
2. We've got a bunch of rose "shrubs" in the front that only get about 2" tall that we are going to transplant to the side of the house and to this section of my backhard that needs softened. Gonna some rustic looking brick like pavers to form a 2 tiered wall for them (and for the Weigela as well). There's 6 shrubs in all. That's gonna suck. moving anything with thorns sucks.
3. My Lilacs bloomed like champs this year. Best Lilac blooming we've had in years. First real spring temperature wise we've had in years too. Flowers are starting to die which means in the next week, I'm going to go out and prune them from top down. Need to take a few feet off the top and cut off completely all of the oldest branches. First time I've done a massive pruning to the Lilacs in my yard (I've got 6 separate ones).
4. Put down the rest of my by black plastic and put ion mulch. I've got some mulch already. I've got a section behind my pool that Is largely all perennials with 4 potted annual palm trees. Dogs got up there and ripped all of the plastic over the winter since i didnt put mulch down last year so i need to go redo that. I've got some mulch already to put around where a couple of big ornamental grasses are. i'll put that down first while the grasses are low :yo:
5. Get the palm trees and plant them in their planters. This will coincide with us going out and getting the annuals and mulch.
6. Where those rose shrubs were we ordered "Pink Sundrops". Full sun, very hardy, drought tolerant, 12-18" tall and flower from early summer (June) to fall. Here's a picture of what they should hopefully eventually look like..
6. THE BIG PROJECT this year, as if I didn't have enough to do is putting in a pond. My daughter has outgrown her use for her sandbox, so I'm gonna disassemble that and reuse the wood for something else and use some of the sand for the bottom of my pond which is going to be "raised" on the side of my patio. Shaped like a quarter circle and it's going to be 2 tiered. I have a smaller plastic tub that is supposed to be a "pond" that we're going to use for the 2nd tier. Cut out a small section for the waterfall section. My Dad is giving my some unused pond stuff he has like a killer 3' chrub lady that water flows out of the top of and a fog machine. I'm excited about it, just having a hard time figuring out how deep I want it to be (1 cinder block high or 2?) and since it is above ground,. how to aesthetically cover the cinder block. I think I might be rock digging in the near future :D