the shed and the bushes

We are making some progress in the back yard. This is the first of a few posts about bringing our backyard out of it's pathetic, neglected state.

I love privacy. Who doesn't?

I love things open and wide, too. At the big house, our neighborhood did not allow fences, so it looked like our backyard went on forever. We actually had a really great treeline along the back that kind of defined our yard, and some arborvitaes along half of one side. It was somewhat private with openness. 

That made sense.

Anyway - At the small house, we have fences. And we have bushes. The bushes are great because of the privacy thing. They are not so great because they take work to be maintained. (Imagine Hero balancing on top of a tall ladder with a wicked looking hedge trimmer extended out as far as possible over the fluffy hedges. And me trying to stay clear of that beasty trimmer while holding the ladder steady. Fortunately, we had no injuries.)

So at this house, we like the privacy all around.

The hedges along the sides are decent - meaning there are no gaping holes (well, there is one, but we have hope it will fill in), give lots of privacy and are pretty healthy looking. We trimmed those babies up and left them alone.

Along the back - different story.

First there is this:

The ugliest shed in town. 

It has no foundation but has a wood floor (great for creepy critters to hang out under). 

It is pink. Yes, pink.

The previous owner really tried to spruce this up and fixed the roof with tar. It doesn't leak, but it seeped into the cracks on the inside and looks a little wonky.

And the doors. The squeaky, screechy doors that barely open. 

Here it is in all it's glory. 

Here are the bushes on the back fence line. Very sparse and sickly looking.

And we have a very unfortunate looking evergreen that needs to come down (another story for another day) that will leave a giant gap in the hedge.

Wow - just looking at these photos - what an icky backyard we started with.

Have hope if you are thinking you may have a yard that is this sad (You probably don't though.)

Hero just pulled all these out with his bare hands!

Ok - not really. He used a cool thing called a "come-along" that he hooked up to the very unfortunate looking evergreen. 

(There are not photos of the action, as I was no where to be found while Hero worked his fingers to the bone.)

But I did stop at 7-Eleven to get him a giant slurpee!

That pile of bushes got dragged to the curb and hauled off by the city. Hooray!

Here's how it looked without the bushes - all except one, lone shrub. It is different than the others and actually had pretty flowers on it. But it, too, soon went the way of all it's buddies.

And here is what we are filling that long empty line with. Two foot tall arborvitaes. I know. It's going to take a decade for them to offer up any privacy at all, but they were only $3 each! The four foot tall arbs were about $15 each. 

We have time. They will grow. 

Although it's a little strange to be so exposed along the back.

Hero was pretty darn sad to see that shed go. He loved having the extra space so he could move around in the garage a little easier. He was actually really resistant to losing that space.

It took some convincing, but he got on board after we looked at these:

Woohoo!