Courtyard progress

A few days ago the little courtyard area right up next to the front of the house looked like this;

And now we have this:

There were several reasons we went "clean slate" with this area of the landscaping...the dogwood tree had major fungus problems, the hedge bushes we just didn't care for, and the little shrub rose bushes weren't great for small kiddos, were only half alive, and always looked messy and ugh. ;) So out it all went. The left side of the front of our house looks a little naked!

We also took out the hedge bush to the left of the garage. Both of the hedges were creeping into the driveway, and we swiped them every time we pulled into the garage.

The brick accent below the window is kinda cool, right?

A's gasp when N cut down the main part of the tree was awesome. "Oh. OH! OHHH! Mama! DUH TWEEEEEE! It fewl down." (pause) "Go see it?"

Showing me the berries she plucked off the tree branches.

Besides digging out the plants and stumps, which broke two heavy duty shovels, N has been also breaking his back shoveling up all of the river rock that was used to cover these landscaping beds. When combined with all the rock he has dug out of the back yard, we have enough to...well, we have a LOT. Haven't figured out what we're going to do with it all, but we'll get there eventually.

Meanwhile, I've started plant shopping. We will anchor the courtyard with an ornamental tree of some kind. So far I have a few boxwoods and a couple privets.

Plant staging area ;)

Where the plants are sitting is where that big, always-falling-down-over-the-sidewalk rose bush was. No longer. I'm thinking about putting a bench in this little area. Could be cute??

Next up, adding dirt and smoothing everything out, purchase (or first, decide upon!) the remaining plants, plant!, then mulch. The end of the month is our goal. We'll see. :)