Christmas Puppies

Christmas-y pics of the pups! I'd have more of family but Rob forgot to put the camera in the car.

Yard Progress

So the landscapers are gone, the deck is done, and it's time to show off some progress.

The good: it looks great. The paver color choices are great and I'm excited to plant some creeping thyme into the paths between the pavers. Overall, pleased with the yard.

The bad: they went way over budget and it's not done. The overall cost was supposed to include all the labor, the hard scape, misc materials, a watering system, and the plants. They went quite a bit over budget. To rub a little salt in that wound, the plants weren't purchased and therefore nothing got planted, no watering system, and some more landscaping things need to be done, like pouring gravel around the raised beds. So those are all additional costs that I have to take care of on my own that doesn't even get included in the budget fiasco.

So while we recover financially from that money eating project, I've been going out every other week and buying some mulch, buying a plant or three, to do a little bit at a time. I may have to bring someone back in to deal with the espalier trees unless I can find some good info on how to set up the fence for fan style espalier trees. I know how to get the trees going, it's the fence and support system I worry about.

So I have the yard maybe 35% mulched and a few plants in the ground. Some were mine before the project that we implemented in the plans (like my japanese maples) and a few I've gone out and bought because I wanted a little green mixed in with the dreary brown.

This photo shows the overall patio where the deck used to be and the new back porch. You can see where I have mulched and where I still have to lay it. The garbage & recycling cans go under the porch and come spring we'll put up a lattice wall/door to enclose it.  The wooden stakes in the ground are where various plants need to go, per the plans.

This is the rain chain design hanging by the back porch.

There are a couple of tall wooden chairs that I have placed strategically around the yard. I set containers on them. I will probably grow some easily managed vines to grow up the chairs to give it a nice organic look.

The back of the yard showing the pergola. I might plant grapes to grow over it.
The flagstone looks washed out here, but since the pics we have gotten some rain which washed away the dust that was washing out the color. There is quite a pop of color hiding in there.

Night time view

Today Violet and I went to Swanson's Nursery and picked up a few plants to brighten up the brown. The ones I got are evergreen so it'll give us some interest till spring finally hits.

This is a neat little shrub called Sunshine Blue Blueberry. We bought two of them.

We also got two Thunderbird Huckleberry shrubs. They're pretty small right now.

I was supposed to have three huckleberries but I saw this and decided that I'd gladly trade one huckleberry for one Pink Lemonade Blueberry plant!

So that's the latest. I'll continue to post pics and updates as time goes on, maybe once a month. Next weekend I see more mulch and compost in my future. How exciting.