Stuff I Gotta Do: Yard Work Updates

It's been a busy few months over here in my little world, between work, throwing out my back a bunch of times, and working on the yard when my back isn't out.

As I've stated before, my yard is pretty huge by Vallejo standards.  It was completely overgrown with weeds, volunteer trees, more weeds, a 20'x15' blackberry bush, and other plant life.  This summer, I've made it my business, with the help of my family and friends, to get this nasty yard into shape.

But you wouldn't believe what kind of progress we are making back there!  It still looks rough, but we're pretty much stripping it down to its bare bones so that I can plant beautiful things next year, and invest in more attractive landscaping features.

The other thing to consider is the drought here in California.  I'm not watering the "lawn" (and by "lawn" I mean "patch of dirt and weeds"); only the vegetables and plants are getting water as needed.  The plants I've purchased so far are drought friendly, so mine isn't the most lush of gardens.

Anyway, here are some updates. Click on through for pictures.


Let's start with the south-facing flower bed under my kitchen window.

We weeded and cleaned it all out, planted some lavender and roses, and laid down some mulch.  I eventually want to dig out the Lily-of-the-Nile and plant a cutting garden here.  Next spring, I think.

And then there's the middle area in the Western part of my yard:

We weeded, cut down trees, strung lights between the remaining trees, planted a sprawling ground cover called "Red Apple" ice plant, and potted some hydrangeas.  I also got a couple of these park benches for super cheap at the Grocery Outlet, so I put one here in this section. At some point, I'd love for this area to be filled with flowers, and will replace those awful cinder blocks with a more attractive type of landscape stone, like this one.  In the meantime, I think it'll be quite pleasant when the bare dirt is covered with the ground cover.  It's quite pleasant now, actually.  I've been enjoying reading out on the bench.

I've acquired some bare root fruit trees, that I hope to plant in the ground at some point, but seem to be doing fine in pots. I also got a couple of dwarf trees and berry bushes. I wishfully call this little grouping of trees "the orchard."

On the right is the dwarf Meyer lemon tree I almost killed last year.  It bounced back!  It hasn't given me any lemons yet, though.  I planted marigolds under it to encourage bees to visit, but still no fruit!

I want to fence in that whole "orchard" and vegetable garden area, since the straw I used to mulch the vegetable beds is all over the place and pretty ugly.

We also made a pretty little sitting area near the back porch.

The hanging chair stand is as old as I am, and the previous hanging chair was white wicker, but it rotted a long time ago.  My mom found this dark brown one at an estate sale for something like $20 and it was a perfect replacement.  Plus it has cup holders.  I'd like to paint the chair a fun color, but that'll probably happen later.

The black thing behind the hanging chair is supporting the rose that was just flopping over there. I had pegged it as a climbing rose, but since I know next to nothing about roses, that's debatable; however, it needed support either way.

You know what else?  My friends and I have cleared about 3/4 of the blackberry bush.  I had a blackberry picking party, and promised free blackberries and breakfast in exchange for some manual labor.  We had a great time.

Here's what we started with - and that's only part of it:

Friends at work:

 That is all blackberry bush, you guys.

And here's the back porch with the wretched corrugated plastic, and the stupid fence that was built probably for the sole purpose of hiding the blackberry bush:

And now - that area is all cleared!

...with the exception of the piles of debris that I need to deal with still.  So it still looks pretty terrible.

Anyway, here's an updated "to do" list:

• Cut down all unnecessary trees (especially the oleander) to make room for seating areas and fruit bearing trees (complete for now - a few more trees need to be cut down, but they are fine for now)
• Plant a vegetable garden
• Steal back the juniper stump from the neighbor
• Clear and level the south side of the yard and plant ground cover
• Cut back the blackberry bush that is roughly the size of two A-Team vans end-to-end
• Install trellises for the existing climbing roses  
• Dig up the Lilies-of-the-Nile under the bedroom windows and plant roses and lavender and other pretty things.
• Clean up the flower beds that are in various locations throughout the yard
• Pull down the old random fences that are in various locations throughout the yard and serve absolutely no purpose
• Remove the corrugated plastic from the pergola and plant and train climbing flowers 
• Dig up the "lawn" and put in a gravel porch
• Figure out what to do with the newly cleared area where the blackberry bush was
• Research grass alternatives on the far north side of the yard
• Fence in the vegetable garden area

There's more to come on these other planned projects and more updates as well!