Conquering the Jungle

The previous owner of our home was an avid gardener...we are not. We had no clue when we purchased our home the amount of effort and time it would require to maintain the gardens. We put little energy into them in the first couple of years, so it didn't take long for the backyard to turn into a jungle.


Weeds and plants were growing into the lawn, the Black Eyed Susans were crowding out all the other plants, and we discovered that we had a few rather large ant nests in the garden.

This is our rock garden, except you can't see it because of all the weeds.

After 5 years of letting the gardens go wild, I'd had enough. I was determined this year to get them under control. I spent hours and hours digging out all the weeds and unwanted plants from the gardens around the perimeter of the yard. Then we laid down 7 yards of mulch.

We are done for now, but not finished. We plan to rip out the middle garden and re-sod. We would like more grass area for kids to run around in. The rock garden needs a little more attention...we might actually take it out completely and put a shed there.

One of my goals this year too was to plant a vegetable garden. So I ripped everything out along the left side of the yard and planted corn, zucchini, peas and lettuce. Everything is growing really well...except the lettuce did not sprout at all.

I'm quite pleased with how the yard looks and I love looking out the window at it or checking in on the vegetable garden. I used to hate every second I was out in the garden, but now I enjoy it as I see the fruit of my labour. Next year we hope to take on the front yard where an evil plant we tried to dig out of the garden has decided to grow in the lawn instead and is creeping closer to our neighbours perfectly manicured/weedless lawn.