When we arrived the house looked like this….

There was spider grass literally trying to grow under the front door. Our sweet friends had already come by to work on stump grinding and clearing fallen trees. Each and every neighbor we meet talks about the fallen trees and wondering who on earth lived here. Since then we have dug, and uprooted, thinned out, dug a little more and had a gardener come and do the final digging of the spider grasses that had a million root bulbs. The previous owners had put in azalea bushes and a funny variety of things that could have been pretty but they were so overgrown. So we started trying to trim them back and give them some shape. We wanted to keep as much as we could. But as much potential as they had, they had grown out of control for too long. I promise I won’t spiritualize every part of this house renovation but honestly I see so many similarities with our faith. The plantings were good intentioned but not maintained and disregarded. When things built up the homeowner just didn’t care or chose not to put in the time. Fortunately or unfortunately the plants continued to grow even without the proper care. But they were not living up to their full potential to be beautiful and enjoyed by the viewer! We literally dug up cement chunks that had been buried between the bushes. Do the regular weeding folks, the jungle grows fast and the nasty roots go deep.

So in the end we kept 2 small grasses (that got transplanted) and a couple of flowering plants, tore everything else out and shopped garden sales to fill the rest.

Over the last weeks we have added Crepe Myrtles (that reminded us of Texas), knock out roses and lots of perennials that we had in our garden in Switzerland like cone flowers, Black-eyed Susan and lambs ear.  A couple of days ago I spread mulch so that everything won’t die in the winter and then today we put the finishing touches on the yard with the addition of 2 trees and 2 hydrangea bushes. We bought a tree for each boy…(check out the end of season sales if you are in the market for trees….who knew Christopher Columbus was a good reason for markdowns)

It will be along time until these boys can climb these trees but our hope is that they will one day enjoy them! And that they will provide pretty shade.

Here is the finished product! Just like the trees it feels like it will be a long time before everything is matured and looking full but in the meantime it looks fresh and rid of the jungle!

ps- I am still resisting every urge to paint the front door red while Seth is at work one day…probably because I know once I do the door red I will have to get going on all of those shutters! Someday!