Creating Curb Appeal

When we bought our current house, it was a short sale days away from becoming a foreclosure. It was a (almost) brand new home in a brand new neighborhood and we got it for a steal, but the yard had been sorely neglected and has needed lots of TLC. We have slowly been getting the yard looking pretty again.

Since the Groundhog predicted Spring would come early this year, we have been experiencing wonderful springtime weather.  Cool mornings and warm afternoons.  Over the past couple weekends, Dave and I have been working on the "curb appeal" of the house. We decided to rip out the "flower bed" full of half-dead bushes and make an actual flower bed and try to make our yard beautiful and colorful.  I'm trying to expand our vegetable garden this year, and need to attract as many bees as possible.

We started our morning out at the local home improvement store and picked up some colorful plants.  Even though the Groundhog has said spring is coming early, the garden department hasn't gotten that memo, and the selections were still pretty limited.  But we still managed to find some colorful plants. 

Then, we loaded up the back of the car with some decorative stones. Those things are HEAVY!

We tore out the ugly old plants, and found these adorable little guys hiding in the underbrush.  They obviously love living here so much, that we decided to let them stay in the new planter bed. 

 

We built a planter bed out of the stones, filled it with soil, and made a beautiful garden bed.  It was a fun project, only took a couple of hours, and we got to work together, which is always exciting.  At the end of the day, we had a beautiful flower bed, complete with layers of bulbs that will bloom well into the fall.  See that giant rock in the middle?  It's hallow and plastic!  The sewer clean out is right in the middle of the planter bed.  We wanted it to be easily accessible in case of emergency, but still be able to have a beautiful flower bed!

We added this beautiful jasmine to hide the ugly drain pipe covering up the beautiful rocks.  I can't wait till it explodes with color!

We also planted this tiny tree to attract bees and provide us with yummy fruit in the years to come.  It's a grafted "cocktail" tree:  one half of the tree will produce plums and the other half will produce nectarines.  I'm very excited, but think it will be at least a couple years before that happens. 

Have you got spring fever yet?  

Are you planning on planting a garden this year?