Yard Makeover

This is long overdue, but this Spring we had our front and back yards spruced up.  Due to the drought last year and also our wonderful dog, Gus, our yard was in serious need of a makeover to get it back to it's original beauty.  When we first bought our house, there was beautiful landscaping around the backyard, and well as you'll soon see after Gus ran circles in the yard and dug holes, the landscaping didn't fare too well.  We were ready to re-claim the space and make it look nice, or at the very least, have grass again.

Here is the BEFORE of the back yard of our house:

(if you can even call it a yard with all of the dirt!)

and moving to the BEFORE of the front yard:

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Now here's the AFTER of our front yard:

and now the AFTER of the back yard:

What we did (or had done!):

• Laid sod.  Of course with the heat it didn't take too well at first, but it's coming along a lot better now with plenty of watering and some fertilizing.  We still need to add a little more in the back left corner by the tree so it will be complete.  So much better than all of the dirt we had before!
• Had rocks placed along the house and garage instead of flower beds as it wasn't good for the dirt to be right up against the wood siding.
• Re-did flower beds in front of the house and along the back of the fence in the back yard, which involved replacing existing plants with new plants to add more color when in bloom. 
• Added some potted plants for color in the backyard (of course I need to add more) and added topiaries on each side of the front door to make the entry more welcoming.
• Put up a kennel behind the garage so Gus has his own home when he has to stay in the backyard.

I am so happy to have our yard look nice and complete again!  Of course in the pictures it doesn't look like we did that much, but in person it's a world of difference.  It's nice to see our yard look alive again instead of looking out at dirt! Thanks for checking out our yard makeover.

XO,

Tara