Trimmy Trim Trim

Since our house sat on the market for a little over a year before we bought it there were some jungle like growths going on with our trees, especially in the front yard. We're lucky enough to have two large Crepe Myrtle trees planted by the guest bedroom window and a fully grown Eastern Redbud Tree (Oklahoma State Tree, represent!) that's planted by the driveway. However, both of these guys needed a haircut, bad. So thanks to my Aunt C for finding us a multipack of gardening necessitates because we were finally able to trim them up. 

Here is a shot of the Crepe Myrtles with their 5 o'clock shadow. It kind of blocked the guest bedroom window from getting a lot of light from the west and just looked a little messy. 

We learned that by having all these little guys down at the bottom that they are taking water from the main trunks (rude). And since these are Crepe Myrtle trees and not bushes they need not look this bushy. 

Ta-da! All cleaned up and fancy looking. Now you can see our guest bedroom window (which we eventually want to put shutters on - a big list of future projects will be coming soon). 

I think it just brings so much more curb appeal to the front porch area with them cleaned up. I think it makes them look taller as well so that must make them feel pretty good. 

Here's a shot of the Redbud all hairy and stuff. You can't even see the front porch or front door. 

You can't really tell in this photo but some of the limbs were hanging over into the driveway and made it almost impossible for a passenger to get out on the side without getting scratched in the face by our Redbud. So off with their head limbs! 

But we had to be super careful while trimming and had to pay attention to which branches and twigs we were removing because we have this little guy living up there. We think it's a dove nest and boy are they feisty so we don't want to tick them off.  

Here is a shot of the after. We kept some of those low hanging limbs because we were able to move other limbs that have been weighing them down so I'm thinking they'll start to grow upwards here pretty soon.

We hope to get a nice flower/plant bed around the base of the Redbud and add some things by the Crepe Myrtles. We have been debating on planting another tree in the front yard or maybe just some privacy bushes. All of this is going to wait until next year because we've already passed the good planting and transplanting times for the season. 

But first we'll move on to the backyard and trim up some hairs of one of the trees and hopefully some of the limbs. We have two trees in the back but...one is dead. So I think Uncle J (the everything man) said at one point that he could take it down for us...so I might have to do some pestering once it's not 100 degrees outside. 

Here is what our backyard looks like currently. As you can tell we need grass like, bad. And what's funny is that it's this tree in the photo that is now dead. I don't know what happened in between this picture being taken and now, but it's not growing any leaves and the bark is turning all black like it's burnt. 

Here is the living tree that needs trimmed up. We'll probably take it to quite a bit above the roofline. I like the look of super tall trees and B has a fear of any limb or twig or leaf being too close to the house. 

Here is the creepy weird burn looking marks on the dead tree. I know that they weren't there when we first looked at the house but were there by the time we moved in and have only gotten worse. 

Here is the monstrosity that needs to come down so you can see anyone's hesitation in offering to help, but Uncle J already said the magic words so he's committed for life on this one. 

This is the strangest part though, although this tree is dead and not producing leaves and is burning on its own, it still produces the most painful spiky balls. It has these on every limb and twig in bunches and every time someone breathes a ball drops from it's limb and clutters up our yard. Try stepping on one of these without shoes. Ouch Town.

And here is our pitiful grass situation. Maybe it's the lack of sun? Maybe it's just the lack of maintenance? Either way hopefully by this time next year we have a blanket of soft, cushiony grass. 

And our yard sprouts these things. What are they? Who knows? Weeds? But they hurt. They are almost as spiky as the spiky balls and they just pop up in clusters all over the yard. They need to go.

And then finally there is this. This is our back fence line that meets up with the side of the yard of the people who live behind us. These plant/weeds are growing on their side of the fence but hang over to our side of the yard. And this is the after picture. After B trimmed the overhang about 3 feet. So this part of the yard has no grass, no spiky balls, no spiky grass clusters, nothing.

Needless to say the backyard could use some TLC in a bad kinda sorta way. We have a tree to trim, a dead tree to remove, grass to be grown, spiky balls to get rid of, a back fence line of tree/bush/weeds, and about 10 other things to deal with. Don't even get me started on the fact that our backyard consists of about three different types of ground material. It's kind of divided into thirds with 1/3 being regular old dirt, 1/3 being a type of dirt and hay mixture and the final 1/3 being sand. Yup our yard doesn't know if it belongs in the suburbs, the country or the beach. I wish it would make up it's mind.