A little bit of landscaping.

Ok, a LOT of landscaping!  This spring, we finally deciding it was time to bring in some help with the back yard.

When we first moved in, we thought the back yard looked fine, but wanted to extend the small amount of grass.

That fall, we pulled up all of the vines that covered the entire back yard - it was unreal.  We were pretty proud of ourselves, and had plans to move the monkey grass and put down seed in the spring....little did we know... Spring came and dozens of perennials grew up in our nicely cleaned out yard!  You just can't imagine... we just didn't find the time to do the overhaul that year, but M cleared things a few times with the weed-wacker and ground clear spray.  So when this spring came, we decided it was time to bring in some professionals...

We asked around, and tried to get a few different quotes from different landscaping companies.  However, only one was professional enough to actually respond, show up on time, and answer all of our questions in a timely manner.  Unfortunately he was so busy, and this was a 2 day project, that we didn't get it scheduled until the first week of July.  I was literally counting down the days.

Danny and his team did an amazing job.  We took out 3 medium sized dogwoods, plus another small tree.  They limbed up our large Hickory tree, plus some other dogwoods that we kept, and trimmed back the remaining azaleas and boxwood.

Danny did the tree trimming himself.

They removed/moved all of the monkey grass that surrounded the grass, and put it along the back of the house.  They removed all of the bricks that also surrounded the grass, plus all kinds of extra bricks and rocks that the previous owners had left in the back corner of the yard.  We had already removed a ton, but there was still a lot left.  They cleaned up everything else in the back, removing plants, massive hostas, dozens hundreds of bulbs, and a ton of weeds that had joined the party.  They also moved 3 azaleas from one side of the walkway to the other and cleared out the vines along the fence.

Then, once everything was cleared and tilled, they put down new sod and planted 2 new crape myrtles.  We are planning on adding a few more bushes to the back, but couldn't even imagine how much space was actually there when it was all covered!  So we will probably add some hydrangeas next spring to fill up some of the open space.

I can't even tell you how thrilled we are with it.  The open space is amazing - Cady loves it!  She's been running all around, sniffing everything and sprinting from one side to the other.  Before we wouldn't let her past the grass cause who knew what lurked back there!!

Can't wait to enjoy the rest of the summer in the back yard!!

Danny Sharpe, Looking Sharpe Landscapes, was great.  He helped us to design the yard, was responsive while we went back and forth to decide what exactly our plan was, and then he and his guys did a great job.  Highly recommend him from our experience!