I should have mentioned that the backyard is pretty small (perhaps 20x40? I never measured) with a smaller side yard and a tiny front yard. For now (or maybe for next summer) I’d just like for it to not look like an abandoned property.
As always, Dopers are a treasure trove of info!
LIke other in this thread, I’m in a similar situation. I bought at the end of January and the backyard of my house used to have an entire 'nother house behind it. So the yard’s never realy been a yard. Plus the house I bought had been a rental so the front yard hadn’t been kept up either.
Initially, I was a bit paralyzed becasue I had no idea where it start (I haven’t lived in a house in 20 years). Now, I’m mowing and edging so the house doesn’t look abandoned. Even the weedy backyard (I don’t think there’s any grass back there) looks better mowed.
Then, I pick small projects to improve the yard. I degrassed the agave corner and put down mulch. I put plants around the front tree and I’m now picking out shady plants for the small side yard area. I find concentrating on a small area at a time doesn’t overwhelm me.
I’m also contemplating what I want to do with the backyard long term. I don’t want to just start planting stuff haphazardly, I want a cohesive plan. I bought some landscape books for inspiration and make sketches incorporating things I know I want like a Japanese maple and a patio area, eventually a pond. Even though I can’t do the entire backyard right away, if I have a plan, I can keep working at it until it’s done.
Yup, that’s a vast improvement all right. Untended, overgrown stuff just looks ugly - my house had much the same ‘look’, only a lot more of it, a lot thicker and more intertwined.
Ripping it all out and starting again was liberating. Though I wish I’d paid (the local) Jerome.
My husband has little interest in matters of landscaping. And he doesn’t want to pay someone to do it, so nearly everything that gets done gets done by me. I can get him to help move something that’s heavy, but it’s always on his clock, so I end up struggling with most of it myself.
I really need Jerome. A coupla Jeromes. A coupla FREE Jeromes.
When we bought our first house it was so overgrown by the monster shrubberies that ate Tokyo that very little of the house could be seen from the road. And our front lawn was only about 30ft deep. It had monster shrubs by the street, a 3’ patch of grass, and monster shrubs around the entire house up to the roofline. They really did a number on the wood shake siding.
Our first weekend in the house was chainsaw time. We had hoped to salvage a few of the shrubs, but they had grown so large that when cut back, they were mostly hollow inside. Out they went. Yews, arborvitae, rhododendrons, etc. We found the remains of a split rail fence that we didn’t know was under there. People in the neighborhood cheered as they walked by, telling us they didn’t even know there was a house back there. We planted new, pretty shrubs and ornamental grasses, and a few years later it looks really nice.
I am still angry about the hedge. Both sides of the property had overgrown barberry hedges down the property line that were shared with the neighbors. I carefully and regularly prunned and weeded them the first summer. They were just starting to look nice (on our side) when new neighbors moved in on the left side. One day New Neighbor mentions he’s going to weed his side of the hedge if I don’t mind. I cheered him on, explaining how I had been weeding my side and it was starting to fill in and look good again. I came home from work the next day to find the hedges ripped out, roots and all. On top of that, he didn’t plant so much as grass where the hedges had been, so to this day that side of the property is a mess of weedy junk.
It gets better. I planted a line of rugosa roses on inside MY property lines. They’ve thrived in the sunny spots. We moved out last month and put the house on the market. Neighbor asked if I minded if he trimmed back the roses on his side as they were shading his tomato plants. I said I didn’t mind if he trimmed them back a bit. Then he cut them all down. Then he asked me if I minded that he cut them down.
I’m so glad I don’t live there anymore.
Our new house has a great big lot in deplorable shape - I look forward to whipping it back into something nice. Our new neighbors have 8’ high deer fencing around their yard to protect their hundreds of thousands of dollars in landscaping. They are master gardeners and have offered advice and plants. I do not fear that they will undo my efforts. I just have to undo the efforts of the previous homeowners. They had a thing for lambs ears and angel’s trumpets. The angel’s trumpets are freaking me out and must die.
My husband is the same - only he extends to interior design as well.
I thank God frequently for my husband’s cousin Sean. Sean repainted the entirety of the inside of my house for the low, low price of free dinners, some homemade cookies and 200 bucks. I love Sean.
Ya know, I don’t even know what kind of bushes our shrubbery is made of. The left side of the property has hedges that are not in bad shape at all, although a bit leggy at the bottom. They’ve got little white flowers growing out of the top.
The front hedges look like. . . hedges. Green on the outside, wood on the inside-- with a tree trying to grow up in the middle. Or should I say ‘looked like’. Right now they’re just mostly sharp, bare branches. Up against the house are two different types of over grown bushes (about 10 feet tall and covering up our window until we cut them back)-- also with a dang tree trying to grow inside them.
Hey! I do have a few pictures of the hedges and bushes!
One of the front hedges before we trimmed them back from the sidewalk. I was standing in front of them when I took the shot with the cellphone. They had to have been at least 7" high since they towered over me by about 2 feet.
This was one of the bushes up against the house before being ruthlessly trimmed. You can barely see the window it covered. After we trimmed it we discovered an electrical outlet and the outside water spigot hiding behind there.
Reliable Jeromes are cheap at twice the price. Seriously, when you think about the whole rest of your life you have to live, and about the shrubs coming back if you don’t get enough of them, and the back you can ruin, and how much your time is worth to you - spend your time on the flowers, hire Jerome to raze the yard.
Interior design? Interior design? You might as well say that in Swahili for all my husband cares about interior design. He cares not one whit about the ambience of his environment. Not one whit.
I really need a *live-in * Jerome. There’s sooooo much that needs Jeroming.
Your hedges are probably some kind of boxwood. There’s a billion different ones. We’ve got a boxwood on the west side of our house, that desperately needs to be trimmed, but it’s in good shape–I’ve just been lazy. When we moved into our house 3 years ago, it had some nice trees (two oaks, a couple of maples, an ash, and a birch), and some incredible crap. We called in a professional and had him look over everything. The birch in the front was dying (rotting from the inside). We had a bunch of cedars in the back that were all tangled up together, blocking the path around the house and were an attractive nuisance to our kids who liked to climb inside and scratch themselves. We also had azaleas, which bloomed a beautiful pink–on the 3 or 4 branches that still bloomed, and rhododendrons that were sold old they didn’t bloom at all. We had him pull the birch, the cedars and the old old old shrubs, and we planted new trees to replace the old ones. I still want to plant more stuff–flowering perennials would be nice, and some groundcover instead of mulch for the front shrub bed.
But my dream is the back property line. We have a crazy neighbor who loves birds. That would be great, but the birds she loves are pigeons and those bastards are everywhere. I thought I got away from massive numbers of pigeons when we left Manhattan, but the bitch feeds them. It makes my day when hawks come by and pick the things off, except when they leave partial pigeons in my backyard. I want to block more of her property off, but we don’t have markers back there and there’s some dispute about where the line is (we’re going to get the surveyor in soon to mark it). Then I’m getting rid of the old decrepit trees and planting new evergreens and ferns (I love ferns) to fill in the line so I don’t have to look at those damned pigeons all the time.
I’d advise doing lots of research on easy-growing shrubs and perennials. I wish I had done that before calling in the professional. He was great for doing the heavy lifting, and I am not sorry we hired him, but it would have been cheaper to pick the shrubs and plant them myself.
Did I mention that Jerome is seriously hot? Oh, yeah, baby.
Yum. Does he take his shirt off so his tanned torso glistens for you?
Why, that’s exactly what I need! A hot Jerome for the outside and a sexy Andrew Dan-Jumbo for the inside. Ya know, I’ve been to the Home Depot a dozen times and never has Mr. Dan-Jumbo offered to come home with me.
Mmmm. Andrew Dan-Jumbo. You know, I saw a show where he was doing some landscaping. Andrew in and out–of the house, I mean. Inside and outside of the house.
Man, it’s hot today.
I think that Paul James the Gardener Guy is pretty sexy for an older guy, too. (He has not shown up and offered to help with the weeds either.)
Get a cold drink, Biggirl, and I’ll tell you a story.
Many years ago, I bought a house. It was my first house, and most folks would pronounce it to be a shithole, which it indeed was. However, it was an affordable shithole, and I learned much in the 15 years spent there. In the first week after settlement, basic yard cleanup filled 13 of those big honkin’ 50 gallon trash bags. The two guys on either side of me piled my bags with their trash to get rid of it, so happy were they to be rid of their obnoxious neighbor. The contents were: tires, a bowling pin, clothing, undergarments, knives, appliance parts, automobile parts, window frames, broken glass, beer bottles, cans, parts of a swimming pool filter, part of an above ground pool, lumber (rotting), prescription pill containers, and other items which defied proper description.
The remaining vegetation consisted of: two fruit trees overgrown with suckers, some dead bushes, a hedge, and an irregular lumpy melange of weeds. The dead bushes were removed via a Ford truck and some towing chain, the fruit trees trimmed of suckers, and the hedge was contemplated. Forgot to mention that the hedge had actually grown up and through some crappy and now badly rusted metal fencing. I had my one buddy with an industrial duty roto tiller come over to do the back yard in preparation for reseeding, and then we found rebar. Have you any idea what a 20 horse tiller does when it hits 5/8" and 3/4" steel bar in 12’ lengths? My buddy damn near messed himself when the machine began its ugly dance. The rebar unearthed, we completed tilling, I raked things quasi-smooth, and seeded. At this juncture, I learned that my home was situated on ancient burial grounds, and disturbing the soil had angered the gods. They wept. For days. And more days. Yet more weeping from the sky, such that what seed not immediately eaten by a plague of birds was washed into my side and front yard, forming a brown miasma, as if I’d administered a high colonic to some huge beast behind the house.
A slightly less lumpy crop of weeds soon sprouted along with a possible chance of grass. Once the green collection of growth needed mowing, it became apparent that the two fruit trees were only going to produce one thing, that being intoxicated wasps. Miniscule fruitlets, resembling the spawn of an ill-begotten experiment at Del Monte would form, drop, and rot. Winged angry insects, drunk on their ground produced pruno, made lawn mowing a task similar to dancing the fox-trot in a mine field. Re-enter Mr. Ford with the towing chain, and that problem was abated.
Seeking further enjoyment, I turned to the nasty looking hedge. It wasn’t one species, instead appearing to be a mixture of boxwood, thorny something, and mystery plant. One weekend, my then girlfriend and I attacked this evil growth, and together hacked, sawed, dug, and pried out of the ground the entire foul 30 feet of it. We’d just about finished bagging it all up and were ready to enjoy a much needed shower when the neighbor came home and reacted to the sight with horror. Remember the movie “Alien” and the scene where the critter bursts through Kane’s chest and scampers away? Same look. :eek: Turns out the aforementioned mystery plant was none other than Toxicodendron vernix or Rhus vernix, better known to most folks as poison sumac. The decontamination shower proved to be grossly insufficient, and we spent the next week consuming methylprednisolone, avoiding contact with one another, and generally bitching and itching. Great mid summer fun in a house bereft of air conditioning.
Having learned my lesson, I did nothing further to the grounds, other than spread the weed and feed stuff, and take my pet Lawn Boy for a weekly walk around the yard. That place was 12 years ago, and although I have a newer pet Lawn Boy, walking him at my present abode is about all I do, lest I bring down a new pestilence upon my head. 
Good luck.
Thanks dances. That there sure did ease some of my fears. Especially since this city girl has already run into frogs and snakes. SNAKES! Well, snake-- but still.
And Mr. James has a fine, fine set of legs, is an award winning chemist and has a sense of humor. Too bad he’s already taken.
Aha! So that’s what you call that crap growing in front of my house!
I had my son whack it all down and clear it out in the spring (when we moved in last September it was all about 3 feet high and full of bees) but it’s growing back. If I can ever scrounge up enough money to do something with the yard I’m digging that whole bed up and filling it with gravel.
I’ve been considering posting pictures of the next door neighbor’s pile of garbage that is a yard and house. I almost took the pictures two days ago. It’s really bad, and everybody should glory in the fact he doesn’t live by you. The thread will be up some day soon. It will be a real treat people. At least the one vicious dog isn’t running around loose anymore. He almost tore up a dog, and both dogs took off for a while causing trouble in town. I have to wonder how deep 3 years of dog shit looks like in the shed he used for the two dogs.
I hate mulberries. Trim the tree back as much as you can and it still drops them everywhere. Worse, the dropped berries and/or the berries that stay on the tree will eventually ferment. And then the squirrels and birds eat the fermented berries and have raucous parties in/under the tree where they’re loud as hell, chattering and squawking away. And yes, shitting purple. If I had my way, the mulberry tree in back of our house would be gone.
