Landscaping Victory/Victory Garden

There are a great many things you don't know jack about when you buy a house. Yes, you know how many bedrooms are ideal and what kind of garage you want, but there are things you will never know until you live in a house.

When we bought ours, I distinctly remember the agent commenting on how wonderful the landscaping was and that a previous owner had clearly spent good time and money on it. Oh, how easily I am manipulated. I thought, great! Our yard will look awesome without a lot of work.

Here's the thing dum dum Amanda. Landscaping is a ridiculous amount of work. The first few summers we spent living amidst the landscaping (the entire perimeter of the backyard, the front bushes and landscaped beds) was chaos and anarchy. It was a plant uprising. Honestly, the person who planted everything must have had no life in the summer. Weed, weed, weed. Relax for a brief moment. Weed, weed, weed.

Last year we started to wrestle control of the backyard jungle by tearing up a huge portion of the landscaping beds, and adding no fuss (salvia, black-eyed susans, prairie grass) landscaping to an area where we didn't want grass. This year I tackled the final battlefield: the strip of perennials we spared from being grassed. 

Peonies, irises and lilies we liked. There was just an unbelievable amount of weeds that grew in among them. So, I weeded the ever loving daylights out of it, moved our herb pots over and added big pots of cherry tomatoes. Victory!

 Also, we grew beans this year. And ate them!

Lesson learned. While I do actually find vegetable gardening and minimal amount of weeding fairly relaxing, the next house will NOT be landscaped like this one. Cause, I actually have a life.