The landscaping has begun~!

So, I woke up this morning and decided today was the day the landscaping and yard work would begin.

I don't know why ~ it just felt like the right day...

I decided I would start in the back yard. Mainly, because I want grass under my clothesline. And, honestly, the man-child has so much framing around the front of the house that I don't even want to deal with it until they finish pouring their concrete jungle next week. This is not a small project. The residence yard is 112' wide by 320 something feet in length. It is HUGE~! This is just the interior of the cinderblock wall that goes around the residence. Outside of the cinderblock wall is the alfalfa fields.

The landscaping plan has been kind of hard to plot, think, scheme, even figure out where to start with this big of a yard... The good news is that I do have a few mature bushes, a row of lilacs and GINORMOUS trees as a basis to plan with. No complaints out of me... Where do I start?
Well, the backyard I suppose...

So, I spent the day tilling all the June grass under.

I love my 'monster tiller'... It's an animal~!

And, here is what it will look like in a couple years.

(Well, similar...)

This was my inspiration for my starting point. Isn't it beautiful?

Isn't the back of this old house the perfect setting for this kind of idea?

The link to the pic: http://bellafayegarden.tumblr.com/post/14045552439/manor-terrace

I showed this 'what I want it to look like' picture to the man-child and he was on board and we were headed to town. Mainly, I wanted to see if any climbing roses were on sale at Ace Hdw. They only had a couple left. I chose dark red climbers. I also got 3 virginia creepers and 2 wisteria vines that were on sale for five bucks a pot ~ yay me!

Then, we bumped over to the block plant, to see if they had any pavers for a patio. The man-child wanted to pour a cement pad for the patio. I HATE cement. It's just 'blah!'... This picture convinced him to do a paver patio, thank the lord...

I scored lucky today - the block plant had some mis-dyed pavers. They're kind of a mocha/dark purple color, but they were CHEAP, so we bought all they had... A couple hundred dollars for 475 blocks, which would have cost me double that price for half the quality at Home Depot...

All in all, doing a patio out of these pavers will cost less than 1/4 of what concrete would have cost and I have enough pavers to go around the South side and incorporate a pad for the hot-tub too....

There's an advantage to being cheap ~ I know, sometimes I drive him CRAZY because I'm such a miser, but I can do triple with "x" amount of $ doing things my way, than he can and he knows it ~!

2 full pallets of pavers for that price is almost unheard of.

A couple ton of rock ~

It was my lucky day today~!

That door right there between the windows, with the little awning over it -

That comes out of my bedroom and the hot-tub will sit right under that window by the back corner of the house. And, the back patio will wrap around that back corner to the hot-tub and door...

The 'bridal wreath' (spirrea) bush by the hot-tub door is big and beautiful...

It lived through the vacancy of the old place, so there's another big, mature bush I have to work with~!

Sparking a flame of enthusiasm in the man-child with a picture of what I want it to look like was a great strategy. He's already rounded up a few friends that owe him favors and they're starting the patio tomorrow...

Sometimes, you just have to use visual clues for the male gender, I guess???

I'm EXCITED that it's finally moving in a 'forward' direction.

I know he's amazing with heavy equipment and once the backhoe comes around the house, it will be quick and painless and beautiful when complete...

By Sunday, the backyard should be well on its way and some of it planted and then, we'll just move on to the next spot (with pictures for the man-child, of course) and the momentum might continue~!

***Funny story about the monster tiller...

A couple of years ago I was tilling up and preparing my potatoe pits... This monster has forward, reverse, rear tine, front tine and neutral. It is HEAVY... So, I was going in reverse to get to my starting point, to till a new row and I wasn't paying attention. The tiller pinned me up against a chain link fence and ran out of gas. In the struggle, I ended up with my hair all tangled in the top of the wire. There I was, stuck against the fence, out of fuel and all wadded up. I was there for about 45 min. before a friend came down the road and saved me. He's one of the friends coming tomorrow to help lay the patio. I know he's going to give me a hard time all day about it. They banned me from the monster tiller that season... 

I'm thinking if I play my cards right, I'll get one of the men to finish tilling up the south side of the house... Of course, there's no chain link to get pinned up against and nothing to tangle my hair, so they may just make me do it myself. That's ok too ~ a girl can dream... I thought the prior tiller incident was funny, but the man-child got mad at me. I'm a 'pro' at getting into incidents, I just never seem to have an 'escape plan' when they happen...

I've learned to carry my cell phone instead of leaving it off and in my purse, after a few of these kind of adventures <wink> Well, actually, the man-child MAKES me keep my phone with me. He thinks I'm dangerous and too independent. I think I'm adventurous and brave~

It's still in dispute, but I think I'm winning~!

=)