Landscaping Project? Done!

As many of you know, Michelle and I have been on a mission to rework the landscaping in our front yard. After many long months, we have finally reached a point where we can say, with some confidence, that we're "done." As a point of reference, here is the house a year and a half ago, before it was painted and before we started to rip out the dead and ugly looking plants.

Here's a more recent picture, partway through the project. Most of the rock has been transplanted, and the bushes are all (thankfully) gone. Note that at this point we still have three big trees in our front yard, which look pretty crowded.

And here is the finished project. Yes, the plants are all pretty small, but they'll grow. The middle of the three trees from our front yard was donated to Gustavus (they took it away for us and filled the hole with dirt - the tree is now on GAC's ring road).

And now, since I can, I'm going to show some before and after pictures of parts of the yard. Hey, don't complain, you don't have to look at this! Before...

... and After.

Before...

... and After.

Before...

... and After.

Before...

... and After. If you look very closely at the bottom right of the mulched area, you can see the end of a soaker hose poking through. My father gave us the recommedation to run soaker hoses under the mulch and around the plants, which makes watering everything very simple.

Here's the watering "system" that I use. I have three spots where the soaker hoses start, and I connect to all of them at the same time from the main hose. There's a timer at the faucet so I can have it run for a certain amount of time without having to monitor it. Turning this on waters all of the bushes and plants that we put in, even down the side of the house. As of now it seems like a brilliant plan. Hopefully it will still be working in a few years.