Yard Transformation Challenge Week Two

Last Updated on June 17, 2018

I’m so glad you came back!

Week 1| Week 2|Week 3\Week 4|Week 5|Week 6

Welcome to Week 2 of the 6 Week Yard Transformation Challenge hosted by Nat at Simple Family Crazy Life.

Okay, let me show you what we accomplished this week 🙂

Lawn

The lawn will probably take most of the summer to clean up, but for now we’ll  do our best to patch the bald spots and fill in the grass. We spread around quite a few bags of dirt.  A few with manure, and a lot without. We added in some Scotts Turf Builder lawn fertilizer and re-seeded the bare spots with Scotts Grass Seed . Greg is actually becoming a bit fixated on the lawn. And that is OKAY by me!! We will probably need to address the drainage in the yard, but since this is our first year in this house, I think we’ll see what happens over the course of a year before making any decisions.

Weed puller

I have to share with you my new favourite gardening toy! This weed puller is so awesome. We had quite a few thistle weeds in our lawn, and I had tried to pull them up using a small garden shovel, which doesn’t do a very good job. So I bought one of these.  I must have pulled up 25 weeds in about five minutes. And then I thought. Hmm, I guess I don’t need this anymore. But the sneaky little weeds just grow back… so I DO need it. I bought this one at Canadian Tire, but you can get yours here.

Fence

I think the fence may take the whole 6 weeks to get done.  We bought a new pressure washer. We debated between electric and gas. We ended up going with the gas model. And I cannot tell a lie, I broke it the first week we had it 🙁 oops. I pulled the hose across the hot engine and it melted in a spot.  I had this smaller electric pressure washer that we had in the condo. So until I get a new hose, I have been using it to do the areas behind the flowers and around the planter boxes. It’s only 1600 PSI instead of 2700 PSI, so it works better near the flower beds.  I will probably end up doing it in sections. Here is the difference  in the fence with one section cleaned.

Pick a Colour, Any Colour

Look at all those little soldiers all lined up. I am not good at decisions, never have been. So I bought a couple of samples… Ok maybe more than a couple. I picked Cappuccino, Chesnut, Chocolate (there go those food colours again!) and Padre Brown. Here  they are on the fence:

If you look at the top section, you can see how faded it is, compared to the newly stained panels

Decisions have never been my strong suit. Personally, I would be better off if there were only 3.    colours of stain to choose from. Okay… maybe only two 🙂  I can’t decide.  The pressure washing is turning out to be less work than choosing a colour!!

Roses

I did a big pruning. Unfortunately I forgot to take before pictures 🙁  I don’t know the species of some of the roses.  The former owners left the tags on some of them. Here are the ones that I do know.

• Secret
• Hot Chocolate
• Lemon Meringue (Climber)
• Peace (I brought this one with me)
• Sugar Moon
• Fourth of July (Climber)
• New Dawn
• Bonita

I left most of them a bit  taller than I would normally, but until.I see how they grow, bloom, and even in some cases, what type of rose they are (hybrid tea, climbers, floribundas, shrubs) I thought I will err on the side of caution  for now. Next year they will be getting pruned super hard.

I had never pruned a climbing rose before, and I found a video (see below) that told me what I needed to know. Here is my best try at properly pruning this one, I’m not sure what variety it is, but I know it’s red. The VERY BASIC gist of this is that you take a few of the main canes, and bend them horizontally, which allows the laterals to grow upward, resulting in many more blooms. Once that bottom branch gets long enough I will bend it back across in the other direction. I’l give you an update on this one through the season.

https://youtu.be/gNiOW1kBNGo

Daybed

This is what the daybed looked like in my old place. You can click on the photo to see that post.

And here is what it looks like now. I’m not sure if I’m going to put the canopy back, or if I will leave it off. It used to be against a wall, but won’t be in the new house.

I bought the same colour paint as the back doors on the house. It is Benjamin Moore Kendall Charcoal. But truthfully, I had it colour-matched at Home Depot with Behr Paint. I only use Behr paint. It’s really fabulous paint. Great coverage. Did you know that if you have the name and brand of the paint colour that you want they can colour match it, no sample necessary

Shed

I used to have an old school secretary’s desk. And then when we moved. we sort of misplaced some of the drawers.. So now it’s about to find a second life as the base of my garden bench. The pedestals were previously taking up space in my garage, so they had to find a new home elsewhere.

I need  a potting bench area. LOTS OF STORAGE, which in my world will ultimately involve bins. I want all of the garden tools to be neatly stored, and easily accessible. Not all piled in a corner like they are now. Also, I need to free up some floor space so the lawn mower has a place to “park”.

That’s it for the second week. I have some momentum, and am really hoping to get all of my projects done by the six week mark, which FYI is my Birthday weekend!!!!! You can go ahead and start shopping for my gift now 😉

 See you next week!!

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