Making Ditches in the Front Yard…For Good Reason

After we dug up the back yard and made a mess, I asked if we could work on the front yard first since it is certainly seen more. I thought that we were just going to add a drip system to the planter boxes, and hopefully get a new planter box in the process.

Little did I know, Hubby had different plans out here. He hated the present sprinkler system and decided to use the nice winter weather to make it right. It was about seventy degrees while we worked today. Just about perfect!

No more mowing over sprinkler heads in the middle of the yard! No more water being blocked by the two mini palm trees! The entire yard will now get double coverage from a rotary sprinkler head in each corner of the yard.

To begin this labor-intensive process of redoing the sprinkler system, Hubby starting cutting chunks of homemade sod where he needed to dig into the yard. This way, when he is all done and the new system is in, he can fill the holes with grass strips instead of bare dirt.

It would take a long time for bare dirt to fill in with grass again, so I appreciate his thoughtfulness on this one. Though it meant a lot more work for him…poor guy!

This was his idea…I promise.

Here he is skimming the sod off the top in nice, neat five-inch-deep squares to place back down when the new pipes are all in. I will do a post soon about how he then dug trenches to get the old system out…and found an even older system underneath that one! Sheesh!

He was sore for days after this because it was such awful work. We only had one shovel that could do this type of digging, so I stayed busy trimming bushes and trees in the yard.

I passionately hate our two bougainvillea plants. They are covered with spikes that inflict the highest amount of yard-working pain possible. I want to get rid of the one in front of the house. I guess we can keep this mailbox one, as long as it stops biting me when I trim it back.

Fat chance!

The previous owner, a landscape architect, no less, placed the sprinkler heads right behind these two mini palms. Smart move, guy!

As you can see, I got a little trim happy with the clippers this morning. I’m still trying to convince Hubby that we should dig all of this out and start from scratch with a new planter box. I feel like we’re only doing this job half-way if we leave it as-is. He might be considering it…since he asked where the sprinklers could go if we did something new here. I’ve hated how this looks since we moved in 2.5 years ago.

Fingers crossed!

We added a new tool to our collection for this job…an awl shovel. Is that the right term?

As you can see, we treat our equipment with the highest level of love, respect, and care. Even the new stuff gets such special treatment!

Hubby is pretty good at eye-balling straight lines in grass, I must say!

Do you like my neighbor’s latest hoarding purchase? I can’t tell you how thrilled I am to now see a 1981 RV sitting there every time that I look outside our front windows. Absolutely awesome.

The neighbor said that he is surprising his wife with another Lincoln for Christmas. I asked if he was going to trade in one of their present eight nine vehicles to get it. He looked at me like I was crazy or something.

After trimming, I grabbed our green barrel and filled it to the brim with bush scraps. This was a pokey and painful endeavor!

Probably not as painful as Hubby’s back, though, so I’ll just shut my mouth now.

And, once it was all cleaned up, the front was already looking much better! I would love to tear out those three bushes in front and put in a new cement border to create our new planter box. This might actually happen. Yippeeeee!

And Mr. Death the mailbox bougainvillea lived to see another day. I’m sure that the mail lady appreciates not being bitten by these fierce teeth every time she tries to drop off a bunch of junk mail!

I was really excited to have this out on the street for pick-up today. But the green barrel guy had already come way early this morning…way earlier than I wanted to be awake! And we forgot to put it out in time this past week, too, so we are still being graced by all of these trimmings each day.

  

Hubby worked hard and has the muscles to prove it. I’m so glad that I married such a hard worker. I wouldn’t be able to handle a lazy guy. Even soaking the grass first didn’t make this an easy job.

Once he “sods” the trenches, he will dig out the old system(s) to get ready for the new pipes to go in. I must say…it was rather nice to haul the ten-foot piping home in a nice, big Pearl. Hubby still insists that his Corolla could have done it, too.

Should I tell him, or do you want to do it?

Hubby made it to this corner and is now headed to the front corner on the other side. Four giant rotary heads will now keep our front lawn watered and gorgeous. I can’t wait until it’s all in and spraying!

After I cleaned up all of my trimming mess, a great view can be seen of the crappy planter box right now. They ran out of bricks and just kept going anyway.

It’s full of weeds. And cat crap. Lots of cat crap.

Won’t this be pretty as a new planter box with a cement border like we’re going to do in back? We are putting in a drip system inside this planter box, too, so things might have a fighting chance of survival now.

“Might” is the key word there.

You should see the blisters on this boy’s hands from all of his hard work today. What a good guy. I’m so glad that he wants our house to look nice, too. Right now it looks like a cemetery with a bunch of huge trenches…but it will be the almost-prettiest yard on the block soon!