Start from Scratch

Our TOP 10 HOUSE TO-DO List

Number 1: Backsplash in the kitchen - thankfully DONE
Number 2: Making our house more cozy and personal - working on artwork, pillow cases and providing it with a nice doggie smell - DONE
Number 3: putting frosted film on the bathroom windows - DONE
Number 4: creating a nice cozy guest bed room for our family and friends - DONE
Number 5: recovering furniture to make it more personal in the house - ONGOING
Number 6: having my own craft room - DONE
Number 7: building a build in bookcase for the formal living room - this is my dream since we bought the house
Number 8: finishing the basement
Number 9: extending the deck
Number 10: screen-in front porch 

The yard was never in our top 10 priority list. I don't like the weeds or that we don't have a lot of backyard, but I could live with it, if it would have been just for Brian and me. Now that we have Toby and Steele, with lots of energy, we would like for them to run around in the yard and not in the house
anymore. We started our "Yard Project" by planting 36 Ligustrum Shrubs as a fence line in the front of the house. You can read about it here and here They are 3gallon shrubs and need years to be somewhat fence like, but still it was a start.
Next to our house, on our property we have that huge detention pond (it almost looks like a football field) Since the house was build in 2007 it hasn't been cleaned out and it was overloaded with weeds, bushes, dead trees.
 
It is there for excessive rain fall, but has never been more than 3' wet.
Last week we finally had a company come over to clean it out.
They did what they said and CLEANED IT OUT, there was nothing left but 5 shrubs and 3 trees. We came home to a very empty detention pond.
It got covered up with pine straw. They found two snakes in the mess and I'm very happy to have missed those.


TADA, here it is.. our clean and empty detention pond. Now we can start from scratch and see what we really want in there. (keeping in mind we are not allowed to destroy the function of that pond)


We sat down and put a little plan together on what we would like to see..

Removing the gate to the other side closer to our house, adding stepping stones down into the pond, planting some shrubs on the sides... To make it more private we would like to plant more 3gal Ligustrum recurv on the outside of that huge fence, 52 and counting! Not sure when to do all that, but I'm already excited about the finished yard we might be able to have.


                                           
                         



There is just this one tiny question, what to do with the base of the pond? grass seeds? short Monkey grass which comes in 4' pots and you have to plant those? Having the dogs run in it, might destroy any grass! Leave pine straw and only do the sides? We went to a nursery to get ideas but left frustrated, because no one can tell us what is best to put down. It is so steep that a lawn mower cant be easily rolled down there.

I'm thankful for any recommendations you might have!!

Have a nice week. 

Carina and her 3 boys! :) 

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