Call Me Crazy!

A couple of weeks ago, I was doing some of my weekly yard clean-up, and it suddenly occurred to me that we were hosting a Garden Club brunch at our house in two very short weeks. Yeah, panic set in. I was looking at our front yard, and it was not a pretty sight!

Our foundation hedges had become overgrown (even with regular trimming), and were experiencing old-growth die-out. The Sansevieria had taken a major hit in our hard freeze this past winter, and there were only a few straggling stalks remaining. The Zoysia grass that we had planted 20 years ago--and ripped out 10 years after--had managed to reestablish itself. It had completely choked out the beautiful Jasmine minima bed on one side of the yard, and was making great progress on the other side. The bed of Macho ferns was anything but macho and the giant Bird of Paradise plant was on the verge of taking flight...to the moon and beyond.

I decided that a complete rip-out and redo was needed. Luckily, we work regularly with Joe Argentine of Argentine Landscaping, and he was prepared to come to the rescue. I did a quick design, and within a week he had the materials together and his crew came in, ripped out and replanted in two days.

Okay, yes...they finished at 6:00 PM last night, and the Garden Club was arriving at 9:30 AM this morning, but you could barely tell that it wasn't an established landscape.

Take a look at the process. Here is what it looked like going in:

Here is the process:
The old grass and Jasmine required 6-7 passes with the stripper, then the crew diligently scraped, shoveled and raked to remove old soil and roots to bring the bed heights to where they should be for the new sod.

I decided that rather than continue the battle with the Zoysia grass, it might be better to call a truce, and replace with brand new Zoysia. This way, when the old grass pops up, it will look like the new grass. Embrace the enemy!

Here is the new front garden.

I feel like the house can breathe again! I can't necessarily recommend last-minute landscaping, but I'm glad to have gotten it done. It takes a party to get the house cleaned up, right?

And even better, since I haven't owned a lawn mower in about 10 years, the neighbor offered to let me use his anytime I want. Do you think this means I should offer to mow his grass....?