Landscaping is in Full Force!

It has been awhile since I last posted since life has been a little crazy with work.  A lot of progress has occurred on the landscaping and here are a few of the changes.  First off, the red concrete block wall is gone.  I sold it on craigslist and I had the buyers come remove it as part of the deal.  Nothing like being paid and have someone else do the work.  I then removed the dirt behind the wall and made it just slightly raised from the driveway.  I do not seem to have any pictures of this but I am sure you will see it in later posts.  My brother and I also removed all of the wood timbers that were lining the flower beds along the front of the house.  We found they were rotting and I wanted something a little more substantial.  A little over one ton of stone later and most of the retaining walls are complete.  You can see pictures below.  I have to raise the front wall one more level but I will complete that this weekend.  The stone is another craigslist find and once it is all in should cost me less than $250. 

 



 

I also installed a drip irrigation system along all of the planters so that I do not have to do any hand watering.  There are even tubes running into my large planters so that I do not have to water them before I go to work.  Right now the drip system is just connected to the hose faucet but it will be connected to the main sprinkler system once I get the new manifold completed.  Hopefully this will be completed this weekend.  Right now I am looking at controlling my sprinkler via the internet as I try to use some new, but relatively cheap, technology throughout the house.  Here is what I am looking at and for $180 it seems like it might be kind of fun to have.  http://irrigationcaddy.com/   

The next step will be about 5 yards of coffee colored mulch to cover the flower beds on the entire property.  To date I have moved almost 40 yards of mulch this year between my apartment complex that I help manage and my brother’s house.  I am beginning to be a pro at it but am also starting to get a little tired of it.  I also hope to start on the stone columns soon for the front of the house while I still try to figure out the new house color.  I have tried a couple different options but have not quite found the right one.  I got a great deal on real stone veneer that I will talk about in a later post that also came from craigslist.  Well that is all for now and check back soon for the next update on the renovation.