Landscaping

We had a massive bush and several small trees located on the front corner of our property. The bush had been planted by previous owners of our house to disguise the fire hydrant, gas lines, and electrical box that were also located on this front corner.

Though the bush did do a great job at disguising the ugly utilities, that was all it was useful for. The deer liked to eat the leaves off of the bush, but since they could only reach about halfway up, the bottom was dead and bare while the top was green and leafy. The bush was also located in a position that it blocked some of the view from inside our house and also your view of oncoming traffic as you tried to exit onto the highway. Last year when we moved in we had the power company assess two dying trees on the opposite corner of our lot which were also blocking our view of the river. They determined that they were a hazard to fall on the power lines and had them removed at no cost to us. You can read about that here.

The other night around 6:00pm my husband suggested that we cut down the massive, ugly bush. My husband does not get the urge to do projects around the house very often, so I jumped at the suggestion. As soon as we cut into it, we realized that it was a much larger job than we had anticipated, but we were committed. My husband wielded the chainsaw, while I piled the branches up out of the way. About 45 minutes later when we had the whole bush cut down, Randy was sweating and exhausted! Unfortunately we still had to clean up the front yard! He pulled up the lawn mower and trailer and we piled it high with branches to drive to a burn pile in our backyard. After a few trips, my mother and father-in-law showed up. My father-in-law took up the chainsaw and cut back the stump even more. My mother-in-law helped take care of the kids and also to unload the rest of the trailers full of debris. Fortunately we finished just as it was getting dark.

It made such a huge difference! It looks so big and open. I would much rather live with the ugly stump, dead grass and visible utilities than the massive bush.

Here is a picture of Randy and our two little helpers! He took them for a ride in the tractor once we had finished moving all of the debris.

The next day I took a picture in the daylight.


With all of the utilities, it is going to be impossible to ground out the stump and plant grass as we had planned. Instead we will be creating a planter box with either stone or railroad ties and planting something much smaller and more beautiful.
I won't be holding my breathe waiting to finish up this area, just waiting patiently for the urge to strike my husband to take on another project.