As many of you know, Dave and I have essentially been renovating, improving, tweaking, and/or totally overhauling our 1-acre property little by little for the past 8+ years.
It has been a labor of love — something we both enjoy doing together, and something we benefit from every single day as we spend TONS of time at home and outside with family, neighbors, and friends.
We stay busy working in our yard throughout the spring, summer, and fall — starting in April (or as early as we can get outside) and working until November (or until the snow falls).
Once, just for fun, Dave mowed the lawn in December as it was warm enough with no snow — that man loves to mow!! 🙂
A couple years ago, we even raked leaves in February when we had a random 70ºF weekend!
We’ve also been known to work until it’s VERY dark outside (especially in the spring)… working by the light of our exterior house lights, our car headlights, or even using a headlamp!
So yeah, I guess we might be a little crazy!
But our hard work and tireless efforts pay off (in my opinion) as we have a very colorful yard that is enjoyable for both kids and adults to spend time in — not to mention we personally enjoy looking at it every day!
I’ve already taken several pictures of our yard this summer and I keep meaning to share more on the blog, but never get around to it… so today’s post is a compilation of many different areas of our yard over the past 3 months.
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Yes, Dave and I spend quite a bit of time working on our yard!
HOWEVER, as I mentioned above, it’s something we both enjoy doing (most of the time) so it doesn’t feel like a horrible to-do we force ourselves to cross off our list each day.
Plus, Dave and I are both home all summer long, and we’re outside ALL the time with our kids, so we just “pick away” at the yard work little-by-little each week.
We might weed or deadhead for 20-30 minutes while the kids are jumping on the tramp.
We might prune trees or shrubs while the kids are riding bikes around our driveway.
We might pick the garden while they are playing with bubbles or sidewalk chalk.
We might water pots of annuals while the kids are swimming — or sometimes we turn a sprinkler on and let them run through while we’re also watering flowers.
Dave usually does all the mowing, weed whipping, edging, and blowing after the kids are in bed.
Of course, our kids also “help” and enjoy getting involved in the yard work too!
In many ways, yard work is one of our main “hobbies” — something we enjoy doing, something we continually strive to learn more about, something we try to improve on regularly, and something we’re OK spending a bit of money to do.
So yes, we DO spend a significant amount of time working in our yard, but for the most part, we do not feel like we are “slaves” to our yard.
Once Dave goes back to school, we start to tire of doing as much yard work, but then it gets cold and we can enjoy the extra time inside.
By the time the snow melts, we are beyond excited to get back outside again!
WANT MORE LANDSCAPING POSTS?
How We Re-Landscaped Partially for Free!
My Favorite Weed-Fighting Tips and Tools
A before/after of our “outhouse” area.
A list of EVERY plant in our yard.
I hope you enjoyed this little peek into our yard this year!
It’s ALWAYS changing (sometimes on a daily basis) which is fun for us to watch… and it means I’ll certainly have more photos to share again next year!
Beth says
I would love a blog post on how you clean up a yard after winter. I grew up in the desert, and now live in the Midwest. I’m just never sure what peoplee mean when they say they clean out flower beds! Haha. Spell it out for us?? Where do u start? How do I start? What do I need? Just an idea!!
Andrea says
noted 🙂 I will work on this!
Linda B. says
Did you share how the cardboard on the ground in your vegetable garden worked with keeping the weeds under control? I might have missed an update. Thanks!
Andrea says
I haven’t shared an update yet — so you didn’t miss anything 🙂
That said, it actually worked REALLY well. Anywhere with the cardboard basically had zero weeds. However, we needed to do a better job of covering ALL the unplanted dirt with cardbaord because we still got LOTS of weeds wherever cardboard was not!
Next year, we might use newspaper as that is easier to get into smaller places. We’ll see!
I’ll share an update on the blog later this fall!
Natalia says
I realized today why I prefer to read your blog on the computer, not on the phone. And it’s not the presence of ads. It’s actually the fact that I want to “like” every picture and there’s no “Like” button. Agh, Facebook! What you did to me!
Your surroundings are absolutely wonderful, BTW!
Lots of work = lots of beauty to enjoy!
Andrea says
haha! Too funny!
Kathy Spanfellner says
Your landscaping is beautiful – I know it takes a lot of work but it is so worth it! You have a lovely family and great articles!
Andrea says
Thanks Kathy!
Laura says
Isn’t it amazing that all of those beautiful plants can be covered in snow for months, then come back in the spring and summer like they do? Your yard is a beautiful, spacious place for your children to have lots of outside time, and yard work is great exercise for the grownups!
Andrea says
YES! I think this every spring! So happy they all come back each year!
Kathryn Bechen says
Your yard is just gorgeous Andrea and your hard work has paid off by the beauty of it! Your family is so adorable, and all the fun things you do together. Bless you all.
Andrea says
thanks so much Kathryn!
Lauri Everlove says
Love it.. You have done a great job! I love working in the yard.
Andrea says
thanks Lauri! We (mostly) love working in the yard too!
JJ says
Beautiful!!! It is so relaxing to read through your post and see the magazine worthy pictures!!!
Marva says
Thank you for sharing these beautiful photos showing how everything is filling in! I have thoroughly enjoyed watching your landscaping change over the years, especially because it makes my heart smile and I don’t have to endure the sore back!
Andrea says
Thanks Marva 🙂
Jaime says
Absolutely stunning! I am ignorant about landscaping and get overwhelmed figuring out where to start. Would you consider doing a post on what specific plants you’ve had luck with?
Andrea says
THanks Jaime!
I’ve already done a post just like this! You can read it here 🙂
bj says
Your place is so beautiful and colorful!! You’re place should be on a garden walk! I love how you plant annuals here and there amongst your landscaping, how do you keep them looking so full and nice? Do you fertilize alot?
Andrea says
Thanks so much — believe it or not, we almost never fertilize anything!
We do have good soil though, and we water a lot!
Barb says
Andrea, when do you ‘winterize’ your flowers (cut them back for winter)?
Andrea says
yes, we have lots of “fall maintenance” to do each year — it’s sort of specific to every plant though. The veggies and annuals are pulled out, the perrenials are cut back, and many of the shrubs are also cut back or pruned in some way.
Alicia says
Your yard is beautiful!!
Andrea says
Thanks Alicia 🙂
Michelle says
Beautiful!! I’m sure you get so much enjoyment out of it!!
Andrea says
we do! It has been rewarding to see the progress over the past 8 years!
Sonya says
Your landscaping is beautiful!
Would you be willing to share who did the landscaping plan/design (I think I remember a blog post about that?)
We live on a mostly wooded property and have been doing our own landscaping but I’d like to have someone come out and help with an overall plan. Thanks!
Andrea says
Thanks Sonya!
The company we used is no longer in business — unfortunately!
Sonya says
Ok thank you!