Trees!

Mid to late October we invested in three threes for our yard. Our house was one of the few on the street without any trees in the front. And since we moved in 2 1/2 years ago we had to (painfully) remove two diseased trees in the back. One was a large pecan tree and while the other was much smaller, it did provide a bit of shade. 

We are now the proud owners of a Live Oak in the front, and a Red Oak and Crape Myrtle in the back.

Then over Thanksgiving weekend we planted more than 20 new plants, and transplanted close to a dozen. There was an existing bed that goes along the entire length of our house that has been empty since we moved in. We always knew we wanted to plant trees and landscape the back, but opted to wait until we had a sprinkler system installed (which we did at the end of the summer).

Our "plan" consisted of just a few general ideas: something tall over here to cover this up; spreading these out a bit more; and something shorter more like ground cover over here. We basically ended up buying a bunch of stuff we liked and started laying things out. Many more trips to the nursery and Lowes later, we ended up with what we've now got. I'm sure it will need some adjustments after several years, but hopefully most of it will end up okay. 

Two plants we both really liked were Foxtail Ferns (immediately below) and Variegated Ginger (second picture below), so we bought several of each and started planting. The Ginger should grow to 6-8 feet tall (though we have seen a few in the neighborhood that are even bigger, so we'll see how well they like the environment). 

We didn't do much in the front - pretty much just transferred some grasses to the back to spread things out a bit. 

Since this is something we always wanted to do it feels good to have it done. It will be fun to see how everything grows over the coming years, and in the meantime the hours and hours that we spend in the backyard will be a bit more enjoyable.