the side (and back) yards

This is a picture of the side yard, as taken from the “dog area”. There are four evergreen trees planted on the side property line. Two of them were planted a while ago and are decent size. The other two were planted recently, and have some catching up to do. The mulch from the dog area extends into the side yard and even further into the back yard. No major plans exist for this area of the yard, besides continued maintenance of the mulch, and keeping the dogs from killing the one evergreen tree that they have access to (just speaking from experience here). At the rear of the shed are a bunch of black-eyed Susans. I’ll have to take a picture of them when they’re in bloom.

The next photo was taken from the side porch. It shows the pond area and the shed, both of which are in need of some work. The flowerboxes for the shed will be planted this week. I’m not thrilled with the plants around the pond–I’ve decided to go for a bigger plant look there, but that’s going to take some time to accomplish. One of the first plans is to divide the hostas by the shed, as they get very large, and plant them along the stream. And, of course, move the smaller plants to a different location. The table and chairs by the pond was my Mother’s Day/birthday gift from Brian and Jake this year. At some point soon, we’re going to level the earth and put down some flagstone for the table/chairs to sit on.

This final photo is the butterfly garden, which sits between our patio and the back house foundation. It starts to look pretty good around the end of June. The middle plant is a butterfly bush. Also in the mix are the following: black-eyed Susans, purple coneflowers, butterfly weed, blue asters, Elijah blue grass, and a few other things. This area also contains solar path lighting, which comes in handy at night. I love the butterfly garden because I don’t do anything to it and it looks great every year. Plus, there are the butterflies…