Mulch Makes a Difference

So remember when our back yard used to look like this?

And then we tore out all those forsythia and then it looked like this?

And remember in this post when I planted arborvitae, a pear tree, and some other shrubs and it looked like this?

Well, after a 3-cubic-yard mulch delivery, now it looks like this! :)



(the daffodils to the left of the gate are trimmed now since they're past their prime)

And remember when the gate area looked like this up close?

Well now, up close it looks like this!

We put large piece of flagstone (that we transferred from scattered places along the side of the house by previous owners - eventually we'll put in a new walkway entirely) in front of the gate, and now this little area feels so welcoming!

Another welcoming area is this little corner to the left of the house. 

I anchored our arbor there - the same one we were wed under :) - and also planted another arborvitae and transfered a butterfly bush to the center (it was given to us by my in-law's neighbor and we didn't think it survived the transplant...but look! I see greenery at its base!! I think it just might've survived after all. I can't wait to see it come back full force :)

Here's a wider angle of that area. The coloring of the photo is off cuz the sun was hitting directly into my camera phone lense: 

Here's the back left corner of the yard again. I can't wait for my tree and the aborvitae (but the tree especially!) to grow and hide the park's tennis backstop and fencing:

And here's the right side of the backyard. We've got our firepit and grill there now, but we've got big plans to install a patio at the back of the house and move this stuff there. That's something we'll tackle in the future, but for now, this setup works ok.



(The chairs are stacked by the grill because I'd just mowed the yard and left them like that before snapping the pic)

Also on our to-do list is to kill the plethora weedy areas in our grass and re-seed.
Oh, and here's one last backyard shot (well, two if you count the close-up photo after this one). This is a large tree off the left corner of our porch. It may or may not end up staying (it's dangerously close to the house if the right storm and wind took it down in that direction), but for now I dressed it up with some shade-loving hostas:

I anticipate them to get nice and big and leafy and fill in around the trunk a little more.

Well, that's what's been goin on at Casa de Storm as of late. Hope you're enjoying the start of summer and have a pleasant rest of the day!

~Amy