Repurposing my front yard...

I spent all day yesterday mowing, weeding and cleaning up in my yard....It was hot! and humid...I felt like I was in Georgia for the day! While I was working...I couldn't help but notice the amazing difference in my yard in just a few short months. When I got here in late October of last year, the yard was an overgrown muddy mess...the grass had not been mowed for two years and it was three feet long...it  was laying over on itself...I tried to mow it with my push mower but the mower, even on the lowest, setting just skimmed over the top of it. In addition, it had beer bottles, garbage, roofing, tar paper pieces, cans, rocks and a myriad of other debris entangled in all that grass...there was not much I could do with it as winter was setting in. I raked a bit but there were more pressing issues to tend to...I waited all winter...dreaming and scheming on that front yard...

This was it, the day I got the house in late October...

We had an early spring and ALL of the snow melted in April...I was so pleased! I started with raking and I went and bought a thatcher blade for the lawn mower. I raked up 3 50 gallon garbage bags of roofing material, nails, tools, car parts and beer bottle glass in JUST my little front yard...

The plans I had for it were.... a cottage garden...willy nilly flowers, thick and lush and colorful, like the old days...with large flowering shrubs and hollyhocks galore! Roses, Columbine, Feverfew, Cosmos, Bachelor Buttons...you name it, I wanted it...In February, I turned my living room into a nursery...I planted every flower you can imagine and when those little seeds sprouted, I was amazed! It was 3 degrees outside and I had greenery!  I somehow doubted the seeds were viable because I had been carting them around in my travels for two years...I had been collecting old fashioned seeds in hopes, of someday, I would have  my own yard...so I planted a lot! thinking I would only get some to sprout...I will never again, doubt the power of a seed to maintain!  I ended up with 36 Holly hock seedlings and probably twice as many of the others I planted...in total, when all was said and done, I had over 600 plantlings in my living room...lil greedy, huh? They all lived...and I planted them ALL in my garden...

Something like this...the South side is to the left...

The first order of business after trying to get the grass to grow, was planning out some landscaping...I poured over pictures and scouted HGTV....my house is to have a porch put on it...an L shaped porch running across the front and down the South side...the front doors are going to be french doors where the South window is in the living room and the front door will be a side door...so I planned the garden accordingly...It will eventually be something of a court yard...with the driveway to the right and the entrances from the street and from the driveway thru arbors...

A fence...Hmmm...that was a tough one..fencing is incredibly expensive!  I looked at all the materials I had and put in posts first...the rails could come later as I just needed some delineation for the outline...the posts were scavenged from the garage...it had been made out of cedar logs...and they made perfect fence posts! My Honey drilled some holes thru them and I stuck rebar thru the holes...instant fence...and inexpensive...it will eventually be replaced this fall with a white picket fence...

Thank you for this little garage that was made so well 75 years ago...who knew it would become a fence?

Down this entire side of the house and into the street was a broken, sinking sidewalk...It had to go anyway!  I broke it up and saved all the pieces...It made a horrible, muddy mess that had to be raked and leveled out, so I raked the dirt into the sidewalk opening from the side of the house... towards the garage...

 Where the sidewalk was...

During this time, a generous neighbor lady said I could come over and dig in her flower garden and take what I like...she had an incredible flower garden all the way around her house...she also brought me all of the Easter Lilies and such from her church...in the pots, to plant in my garden...I did go dig in her garden...it was scary because I was so afraid to leave holes and a mess in her yard...I went to the compost pile first, filled up the bed of my truck with compost and set all the plants I got from her in the bed of the truck so they would live til I got my beds done...I didn't even have flower beds done!  but the bed of my truck sure looked nice! lol

Next order of business was selecting chunks of concrete from that sidewalk and making a path...I knew it was going to look funny because the path leads to nowhere...well, it leads to a window...and then outlining flower beds in the "courtyard"...I had asked the neighbor if he had cardboard at his work...boy, did he! He brought me cardboard everyday....until I had an entire trailer of it...it was to be the base of my flower beds...I had researched sheet mulching as an alternative to the hard clay in my front yard...it was hard as a rock and not much wanted to grow in it...in addition, digging down yielded black top chunks the size of a large shoe buried all over...from the road construction.

I came up with a semi curvy, L shaped bed...one circular one in the middle and an oval on the other side...the oak tree had to be taken down...It was deader than a door nail from Carpenter Ants living inside it for years...it was hollow and a menace! I asked them to leave most of the stump...It was filled with ant compost! Hmmmm...if I ever find a rose bush that will tolerate arctic temperatures, I am planting it in the top of that stump!

There are several videos on You Tube.com for Lasagna gardens, sheet mulching, and no til gardening...there was only one problem...all the videos said to lay a layer of grass down...well, it was so early in the year, I had no green grass! and I also had no leaves! Here is what I did...I layed down a layer of carboard...a layer of dead thatch...a layer of compost...a layer of dirt I dug out of my back yard...I went to the city compost and took every bag of leaves I could find ,people don't care what they do, they throw their bags of leaves in because they are too lazy to dump them out and take the plastic with them, one of the bad things about going to the city compost, but it served me well that time! shredded leaves even! already bagged!  

At this time, I did not know where anything was...I wanted horse manure..didn't know anyone...but at the compost pile one day, there was an enormous pile of it dumped in an easy to get to location!  It was black, it had been sitting somerwhere for a long time...it smelled like forest floor... I backed up my truck and shoveled away...I thought I was the only one there...but no...there was a city official on the other side of this enormous pile..the compost heap was about 60 feet tall....he was calling in to the Fire Department...because the whole heap was on fire!  It had gotten so hot that it spontaneously combusted...fire trucks rolled in with sirens screaming...well, I was on the other side...and there was no way I was leaving this manure to burn up...I shoveled faster...until the fire came over the top...well, by that time I had just about gotten it all, I had an entire heaping truck load of crap!  I hopped in my truck and drove around the other side of the pile...Mr. fireman looked at me in complete surprise...I rolled down my window...and he said  with an unbelieving stare "Miss...nevermind...DON'T come back today..." So I didn't...he obviously did NOT understand how bad I wanted a garden...

I came home and dumped the entire pile on top of my newly constructed lasagna beds...and with a rake and hoe, lovingly mixed it in around the truck load of plants I had already planted in the compost...they looked sick...yellow...droopy...not happy at all...well...I thought it was something to do with the compost so I fertilized...that didn't help...I watered...nope, didn't help...so I asked the neighbor lady..."I believe they are in transplant shock...don't worry, they will come around"...and they did...slowly!

The week before Mother Nature...

In the mean time, I had my HONEY on the run for arbors...I searched the net...what to make arbors out of ?  Well, the original front and back doors to this house were in the chicken coop...and I saw an amazing picture of an arbor made out of doors...I hauled them out of the coop and my Honey did his best to construct one...it is not finished, he didn't even get to finish it before I had hauled it out to the front yard and stuck it in place! It is still not finished...it needs the middle support and the rest of the paint...

The lasagna beds are wonderful...it took months to get the plants to establish and I know that new gardens are not all that great looking...but I carefully watered, fertilized and weeded...there are few weeds in these beds! and they are super easy to pull out! The dirt is so light and fluffy!  

I put my gardens on HGTV on July 15th of this year...only a small portion of the front yard though...as you all know...I did not think my pathetic little lasagna beds were ready to show anyone...they looked like mounds of dirt with little green things sticking up... Mother Nature decided to come to town....she rained and poured on me for three days straight with wind howling...I lamented my duck pen and my vegetable garden and spent every waking moment cleaning up the mess...and it was finally dry enough to mow...that is when I first noticed what she left for me...I had spent so much time in the back, going out the back door, I didn't even notice that my pathetic little lasagna beds in the front had grown....

Circular flower bed

I got the bricks from the compost pile

This week...

Last week...

The power of dirt...I have had all sorts of folks stop by...the riot of color is amazing...and there is still more to come...