The Great Wall

Another project that's been a long time in the making is our landscaping around the house. We were very lucky that when we bought the house there were already several shrubs and other plants the previous owner had put in. However, they used the black plastic bordering that I see so often and I always thought it could look much better. So two summers ago I set out to start redoing the landscaping so that when we were finally ready to sell I knew it would look great. I also knew it would be a little expensive so I wanted to spread out the project a little bit.

So that summer I consulted the help of my friend Tim Yoder, owner of Yoder's Lawn & Landscape, to help me out. Fortunately for me, Tim's wife Ashleigh needed me to distract him while she set up for his surprise birthday party.  I was able to get Tim to come over and help spend the day designing and building the whole front of the house's landscaping wall. It turned out wonderful, as you can see in the pictures, plus Tim gave me some great lessons on how to build a good landscaping wall. Later that summer I finished the front yard up by adding weed-guard, some mulch, and few new plants based on the recommendation of Yoder.

This last summer, with prospects of selling the house coming up quickly, I decided to finish what I had started and complete the wall around the side and back of the house. I didn't want to bother Tim again with a bunch of free manual labor, so I ventured into this part of the project on my own. Needless to say, it took a lot longer than the front yard, but as I got a few free hours here and there I just kept chugging along block by block. By the end of the summer I had finally finished up and with a few trips to add mulch I was finally finished. I'm really happy with the end result and know that at the very least the project has added some serious curb appeal. If anybody wants any pointers feel free to ask in the comments. Or if you'd prefer the easy way, just give Tim a call and I can guarantee he'll have it done faster than two years.