Branching Out

Hi! It's Jilly. Last week was our city's Spring bulk garbage pickup. Does your city do that? It's kinda nice. You can put all your trash, branches, old furniture & appliances, etc. out on the street in front of your house, then they come and haul it all off for you!

Our yard needed some desperate attention, so the hubs and I got to work!

He clipped/chainsawed? the branches, while I dragged them out to the street. We "pruned the hedges of many small villages", at least it seemed that way. (leave me a comment if you caught that movie reference!) 

While we were working, the kids had a fun time jumping on the queen mattress our neighbor put out. I was, like, "Why are you guys having such a fun time jumping on that old mattress?! We have a trampoline in the backyard!" It must be the fact that they aren't usually allowed to jump on beds. :)  (BTW- most of the pictures in this post were taken by one of my six-year-olds, Girl B. She loves to take pictures!)


When we were done the yard looked MUCH better. You can see the house now! It made me think of how you always feel lighter after you get a haircut. The front of the house feels lighter, like it can breathe! It's amazing the difference it made.

 We ended up completely cutting down a mesquite tree, a Bougainvilla, all the branches halfway up the other tree, and trimming down all the other bushes & palm trees. Phew! One step closer to getting this house ready to sell or rent!

I forgot to take a "before" picture, and this is the best one I could find of the front of the house. It was taken when we were putting in an offer on the house 3 years ago! But, it looked pretty much the same, except the Bird of Paradise (the one in the front on the right) was a wee bit shorter before we started.

Here's another "after" shot to compare.

Phew!  That's better! We still have a little work to do, like rake the rocks to make them more even, and make a little "stream" with some river rocks, but definitely a marked improvement! (Although, I must say, I am not a huge fan of "desert landscaping". Rocks, rocks, rocks! Blah! Excited to move where there is more GREEN!)

What have you been up to lately? Any fun landscaping projects? Let's hear about them!

Linked up to Tackle It Tuesday  at 5 Minutes for Mom.