You made your bed, but DON'T lay in it

My friend, Amy, suggested posting more before and after pictures of our home and garden projects. I have to agree, and unfortunately, I haven't been the best at following through. Rookie homeowner mistake!

Anyway, Ryan and I spent an unusually sunny fall day trying to kill the grass in our front yard/garden. You may be wondering why on God's "green" earth we would want to kill our grass. Well, grass is finicky; it requires lots of water and care; and I want beautiful lush beds of plants to run along our new stone path (see pictures below of the path - not the lush plants). I've spent the last few weeks scheming, buying two peonies (I LOVE peonies), and meandering through nurseries getting ideas and learning more about what grows best where.

First, the path. Ryan did an amazing job finishing up what turned out to be a major undertaking: putting down another ton of stone and filling it all in with dirt. I started planting Irish Moss instead of my original plan of Elfin Thyme. In our climate, I think the moss will do better and spread faster. What can I say? I'm impatient.

We removed sod to make way for this new stretch of path.

We widened the front path to make the walkway more dramatic.

The wisteria that clings to our porch (left side of photo) will be cut back significantly and retrained to grow on a metal arbor. Someday...

And now for today's job: killing the grass and dumping 2.5 cubic yards of dirt to make a new planting bed.

Ryan was such a good sport. He made 3 trips to the topsoil place and unloaded all of it while I laid down lots of newspaper directly on top of the existing grass, formed the new beds, removed old plants, and put in new plants.

The start of something new!

Someone is not as excited about the new beds as I am - can you guess who?

You may remember a picture of Soma from this post in August. In the photo, Soma is laying on my lilies. Let's hope he doesn't do that in my new bed!

Stay tuned for more pictures of our project!