2201 renovation - project 3 (exterior)

We started a lot of home renovation projects prior to Rosemary's arrival. Here are a few we completed just in time.

The landscaping at our house was once very nice......once.

It is now just overgrown and we are trying to get our hands around what to do. The previous owners just let the place go-the grass is really just a weed field and everything is twice the size it should be.

We confined ourselves to the front yard so that we could actually feel as though we accomplished something this year (the backyard is probaby the most intimidating landscape project ever).

The biggest obstacle was the 50 years of piled mulch that had raised the ground lever 6" up against the house. The crawlspace vents have been partly covered and the dirt and mulch cover the bottom of the stucco (you don't want the bottom of your stucco underground-it wicks moisture up the walls between the stucco and foundation wall-not good). So, Todd dug out the entire front planting bed. All shrubs and ground cover were removed along with 42 loads of dirt and mulch.

The largest expense and biggest change was the 30 inch foundation rock that we placed under the overhang. It cleans up the edge of the house, allows for drainage, and looks good. We put edging down first to contain the rocks and act as a backstop for new mulch. We had to repaint the lower part of the house since the mulch and dirt agains the stucco stained everything. The rocks went in (2-3" Mexican river rocks from Lang Stone. It only comes in 70 pound bags - it took around 26 bags). Rocks shouldn't be that expensive, but they are.

We filled the rest with our "go to" plants - fountain grass and lily turf (both great for little sun.) Both grew and looked great at the old house. The new landscaping may lack in color but it cleans the place up and minimally impacts the house. Most of the landscaping in the 60's neighborhoods such as ours use the shrub of choice to cover the homes. It will take about three years for the grasses to grow up and for everything to mature so it will look a little sparce until then.

We decided to leave the two little trees and ground cover for now.....but they better watch out next year. We also didn't take the renovation around the west face of the house yet-you can notice that is just kinds of stops for now......there are some plans in the works for the corner and the west side......
The rest of the pics.https://picasaweb.google.com/studiostinfo/Outside?authuser=0&feat=directlink