As I am in the process of increasing curb appeal for the house to sell it next year, I’m finally making headway on the aesthetic improvements I’ve been wanting to accomplish since I got the house…it’s kind of annoying to always have to wait until you want to sell a property to finally indulge on the stuff you always wanted…you see it on the HGTV shows all the time too. That nicer kitchen, that prettier yard, the nice toilet. Too bad you yourself couldn’t enjoy it because more than likely the house you’re moving into will have the same older stuff that you used to have.
Anyways. Given the heat (why is it always so HOT when I want to do yardwork???) I only managed to accomplish about half of what I wanted to do but hey, I got them done and I am proud of myself.
The back next to the patio, I wanted to do stepping stones leading to the walkout basement. Put those down about 2ish years ago? Or was it last year…either way half of it was sunk too far down and the weeds and grass had grown so far in it was like digging the whole area up just like the first time…though I swear it was even harder than the first time. Thankfully it was hot, but not nearly as hot as summertime usually is. I’d always envisioned having creeping herbs or plants in between the steps so you could step on it and not have it die on you, nor would have to worry about pebbles or dirt poking your foot (the grass back there, because it’s such harsh sun it the hard, spiky kind). So as you can see below, I planted red creeping thyme which is supposed to be quite hardy stuff and surrounded it with mulch because it’s so harsh back there. Initially, to keep costs down, I was just going to edge the grass around it, but I could see the mulch flying everywhere and also the weeds encroaching again, so I just put the paver barrier in (they ran out of stakes so I just used the landscape pins). What I should have done was get sand so that the grass and weeds won’t get underneath and into the mulch area, but I was hot and already spent way more money than I’d intended. Also, I needed to dig the dirt out so that the mulch would sit below the stones and not flow down onto them, but once again I was super tired. Ended up running out of edger and managed to miscount the number of plants needed, but oh well. It still looks nice.
Here’s a before picture and the after:
^You can also see in this picture the 4 stones closest to the camera that I had to raise. I didnt do a good job of clearing them of dirt but they were completely grown over with grass on top of them happily thriving. This is also the side I ran out to edging and plants and even running thin on mulch. The idea is for those plants to spread out (they grow up to a foot around) and cover it all in. They have a slight nice thyme scent too. Inedible and attracts bees (some were trying to check it out as I was planting) but hopefully they thrive
The other bigger project turned out to be much easier than digging up established grass. Just needed to spread the stone edge to the tree. Very minor and took me 30 minutes at most. Now the mulch should stop flowing all over the place.
