Backyard Makeover

When we bought our new house the back yard, smack dab in the middle of the grass, looked like this:

Now I love roses and all, but an overgrown rose bush in the middle of the yard is not very 2 year old friendly. And the two random mini pine trees – yeah those have to go too. We are pretty much going to be taking out all of the random plants in the yard and taking all the landscaping bark out and putting up a mini retaining wall around that area and filling it with pea gravel. All of the boys play equipment will go there. It’s perfect because I can see it from the house with the huge windows in the living and dining room. Friday after Landon’s nap we went outside and whacked away at the overgrowth and cut down a ton (I cut down, Landon chased the dog with the leaves…) until Riley woke up from his nap. I’m pretty surprised on how much we got done in about an hour:

After Brad got home from work we all went back out after dinner and worked some more on clearing it all out. We got so much accomplished.

Saturday we finished hacking away at the overgrowth an pulled all of the branches away to the side of the house to die some before putting them in the trash to be taken away. The next weekend we cleaned up all of the bark and plastic that was under it. We had to fill a huge hole in the center of the area that looked like they used to have a tree that they dug up. The vines on the back of the fence were so over grown it was a bear to get them all up. We would cut vine after vine and think we had them all but when we went to pull on it to get it loose there was still more. 

We finally got it all ready for the rock. This weekend we had the rock delivered and dumped onto our drive way for us to wheel back to the backyard. Landon thought that was the greatest thing ever. He had his big shovel to help move the rocks too. 

Such focus and determination

After several wheel barrows full (and the three wheeled roller to spread the rock around):

Brad set up the swing set Saturday afternoon – Landon couldn’t be happier! He declared that he had his own park in the back yard. Riley loves swinging too, so I know he’s super happy about it all as well. The only other plans (maybe not until next summer…) are to put up a shade cloth over for the area to help keep shade on the kiddos while they are out playing. 
Quite the difference from before: 

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2 responses to “Backyard Makeover”

  1. Anonymous

    Wow, what a difference. Love the new one!

    Jennifer

    1. Thanks! The boys love it too!