Project: Curb Appeal

When we first bought our house, we had these BIG bushes in the front yard. I hated them and so a little over a year ago, Chad's grandfather brought the backhoe over and we ripped those suckers out! You can read about that process here. To give you an idea of the house before saying goodbye to the bushes, I present to you Phase 1 of Project: Curb Appeal.
Phase 2 of Project: Curb Appeal took place this fall (November 2010) when Chad and I planted hundreds of bulbs. This is what the front of the house looked like this spring and I loved it, but all good things must come to an end and bulbs do not last forever.
This is what we were left with once the summer heat hit. A few planters - geraniums, herbs, etc.
My mother saw this the other day when she was in Nyssa for work and motivated me to attack Phase 3 of Project: Curb Appeal. We decided to meet at Andrew's Seed in Ontario after work at 5. I told her I would only do this if she would agree to come help plant. You see, I am a bit challenged when it comes to gardening and that woman has more than a green thumb. We met, we shopped, we talked, and we bought. A tree, three rose bushes, three grass plants, a butterfly bush, and a daisy plant. The roses were 30% off thanks to the Andrew's July Sale!

Mom even gave me her old bench - she has had it for years and it needed a new home. I took everything home, made sure Roscoe couldn't get to it, and waited until the next day for my digging specialist (Chad) to get shoveling and my planting specialist (Mom) to arrive.

You can see them working... I promise I helped.
When Mom showed up she brought three more butterfly bushes with her as a surprise. She's the best!
It only took the three of us about two hours to get everything accomplished. Chad was a huge help and I am pretty sure Mom and I would still be on life support if we had to dig all those holes without his help - especially the hole for the tree. Mom was (obviously) in charge of plant placement and I was at-best a glorified water girl. I watered and fertilized the plants when they were done and I brought water and iced tea to those hard at work. It was a rough job, but someone had to do it.
The bench is a part of a future phase of Project: Curb Appeal. I am going to paint it a great teal color to really make it pop! We also really need to put a fresh coat of paint on the bottom of our house... that has been on the to-do list for a while now.
We are also planning to obtain rocks for a rock path and for landscaping purposes. One step at a time. Chad and I are really excited and proud of our progress. Hopefully this will draw in more potential buyers - and if it doesn't, it is still pretty to look at :)