When buying an older home, you may also inherit a yard that hasn’t been touched in years.  That was definitely the case for us, so after we initially planted some new plants by the deck, one of the first things we invested in was getting all the trees in our yard cleaned up and about 12 smaller ones cut down, including 3 in the middle of our front yard.

Two of the biggest trees in our yard were overgrown with vines and had a lot of branches, so Palmetto Tree Service cleaned them up.  Here’s what we started with:And here are the 2 trees after they got some love- what a difference, right?

After the tree work we cleaned out some of the weeds in the side and backyard, pulled out old bushes in a back bed and knocked down the back and a side of our dry rotted fence during another weekend project. 

The most progress we made on the yard was this past weekend when my mom was in town.  Just like she helped us with the yard when we moved into our first home, she was ready for a day of working in the dirt and getting our yard in shape!

Here’s a few pictures when we first started so you can fully appreciate the after photos.  Notice the 9 ft tall bushes on the side of the house that hadn’t been trimmed in years..

Over the course of the morning and afternoon, we dug up everything in the bed by the driveway except the 2 sago palms, removed the 2 crete myrtles from beside the mailbox, pruned the sprouts on the elaeagnus, cut down the bushes that grew up to the 2nd story on the side, pruned the bushes by the front porch, cut down 3 holly bushes, cut back the flowering plant by the driveway, pruned the bushes in front of the garage, weeded the side yard, removed / trimmed plants in the backyard, raked the area where the fence once stood, then mowed, weed eated, and edged the lawn.

If that was exhausting to read, just imagine how we felt – the pool & a margarita were well earned afterwards!  We created quite a huge wall of yard trimmings that were cleared out this week.

We still need to clear out a few more things on the side and back of the yard, but overall the entire yard is in great shape!  Now we just need to maintain it until we add more love & plants in the spring.