spring cleaning... outside

[swingchickie]

my brother came over yesterday to take a look around my property and offer some landscaping advice (he's a professional landscape designer). what a huge help. i know nothing about plants, i had horrific hay fever as a kid so i was kept to inside chores while my brother did the lawn and weeding stuff... so having him go around the house and tell me, plant by plant, what to do was fantastic. i just followed him around with a little notebook and pen and went "uh huh, uh huh" a lot.

the sad surprise is that i have several trees that need to come down, because they're in really bad shape. two of them are the ones that are infiltrating my bathroom, the ones i was hoping to save... turns out they're not healthy at all, and that there's a good chance one of them could come crashing through my house within the next year. another tree in my yard split and missed my house by inches last summer, just weeks before i moved in, and i'd rather not tempt fate... so it looks like i'll be calling that tree service after all.

the happy surprise is that besides the trees, a lot of the fixing i'll be able to do myself. my brother told me what to get for each thing we're going to do, so all i have to do is hit home depot and a nursery or two, and then he and i will do all the planting. it seems relatively simple, and will look SO much better when we're done. i'm so excited.

i'll take plenty of peeeektures... i want to document that i can actually touch a plant without killing it. :)

Comments

[krisdance.livejournal.com]

We are in the same stages (except we don't have our own personal professional landscaper). Jason took a weekend of classes at our community college (A Weekend for the Gardener) and has some ideas, so at least we have that, plus we belong to the Chicago Botanic Garden, so we can go there for some ideas. They have a whole section for local landscape ideas.

Good luck!

[bohemianrapsody.livejournal.com]

Lucky you! I wish I had a professional landscaper in the family. I know nothing about gardening and landcaping either. (I *did* plant some snow crocus bulbs down my walkway in the winter..let's hope the sprout. I look at magazines and some houses here and their gardens are so, so beauiful! I've been reading up a bit..seems like a lot of work..but then again everything in life worthwhile is work.
We have two gorgeous weeping willow trees that I love, but they're so messy. I have to sweep my deck every other day in summer.