Al Gore Would Be Disappointed

Sorry, Al, but it had to be done. The only question is why it took Mike and I over ten years to do it. We had this horrible landscaping in the front of the house which was probably planted back in the late 80's by the person who built the house (green bushes under the windows and this circle of red bushes in front of the green ones.) Can someone answer why on earth you would plant bushes that have nasty little thorns all over them? Bushes that need to be trimmed regularly and whose thorny clippings need to be raked up and thrown away? Ugh....I can not count how many times I've been stabbed (through gloves, mind you) by this troublesome specimen of horticulture. And yews.....they seem to be the standard in most people's yards, but I fail to see the appeal of them. Ewww to the yews. And where are the trees?? Our grass scorches every year because it gets no afternoon shade (don't be fooled by the green lawn in the photo. I took this photo in spring time when it rains every other day.)

So last weekend Mike and I got out in the front yard, and wielding our handy loppers, we hacked and pulled and piled-up branches till those bushes were nothing but stumps. Mike dug out all the stumps with the use of some rope and a little ole John Deere. I told him I'm going to get a bumper sticker for his mower that says, "She thinks my tractor's sexy." (You gotta listen to country music to get that.) The funny thing is that there is this pathetic looking sunflower that still remains. Did I plant it? Heck no. It was a sunflower seed that spilled out from the bird feeder on the shepherd's hook and it planted itself. I didn't have the heart to yank it out of the ground, so we worked around it. I'm silly that way - rip out a dozen bushes but keep the sunflower that'll be dead in another week.

I'll grant you it doesn't look like much of an improvement just now. Join me in envisioning one unhappy pink (or blue depending on soil acidity) Hydrangea bush from out back getting too much sun who will get all happy out front in the shade (plus it'll hide the electric outlet quite nicely!) I've also got an abundance of various perennials in the back of the house that will be thinned out and finding themselves a new home in front this fall. And hey, if you've got some variegated hostas you want to get rid of, let me know! My plan is to give the house foundation some multi-season blooming color, a free form look, and maybe some shade for the front lawn (a River Birch or Red Maple, perhaps?). So stay tuned for the improvement photos.....sometime next spring. Sorry to leave you in suspense, but our budget only allows for short bursts of improvements.