A little {yard} love goes a long way with a few tools like an edger, a hose reel cart and some mulch. Find three simple, easy ways to spruce up your yard.
Wow, this post has taken me about four months to get up on the blog. Between bad weather, crazy schedules and being out of town, I just couldn’t manage to take pictures at the right time, or get Coach motivated to do the work when I was free to photograph it. Anyway, halfway through the summer we finally made some simple updates to the outside of our home.
When we bought the house, the yard and “landscaping” looked like this: tons of big, overgrown bushes and lots of weeds. It was a foreclosure, so the house had sat empty for a while before we took ownership. Disaster city!
I’ve shared before in my State of the Yard Address how we improved the outside of the house just by ripping out some of the larger plants, mulching the front beds and trimming the bushes we left in place.
Each year we try to give the outside of our home a little more attention. Eventually I’d even like to paint the shutters and front door a different color.
All the while, Coach has wanted an edger, because we both agree that an edged yard looks 100 times better than all this overgrowth on the driveway and sidewalks.
We chose an inexpensive electric edger to get the job done. Coach said it was easy to use, and I can vouch that it didn’t take him long to set it up and get everything edged. {It doesn’t hurt that he cut the clover in the after picture, too. Next year’s goal: kill the weeds in the yard so it looks nicer and the HOA will quit bothering us. Ha!}
I just love coming down the driveway now and seeing that crisp line along the edge. It’s the little things, you know.
I should have taken a before and after photo of the driveway, because it was pretty rough! I’m loving the clean-up look.
We also picked out an awesome hose reel cart and a resin wicker hose hideaway to tidy up the hose situation around the house.
I know this is probably the least glamorous shot ever to grace my blog, but we had been leaving the hoses lying on the ground outside, pretty much year-round. It wasn’t cute. And Coach had to move the hoses every time he wanted to mow. This makes things much easier!
We chose the resin wicker hose hideaway for the backyard, since it will stay put and never need moving. I picked the hose cart for the side of the house, so we can easily roll it to the front of the house when needed.
And last, we put down some mulch in the front beds. What do you call flower beds when they don’t have any flowers in them? Just beds? Sure, we’ll go with that.
We needed to cover the old, faded mulch from last year {a generic brand} and hide the dead {and living} weeds. I’m hoping this Scott’s Enhanced Mulch keeps its rich color a little better than what we used last year.
Coach did all of the work, so I can’t take any credit for it. And I think the yard and beds look great now!
Well … it may be time to pull out the hedge trimmer again and clean up those bushes. I guess a man’s work is never done. I’ll be sure to add that to the honey-do list.
