The Yard

The advent of warmer weather around the South has brought with it household repair season at Patterson Place.

There have been projects we've been wanting to do since we moved in but we felt it was good to live in our new home for awhile to decide what order we'd like to do our projects.

First on the list for safety reasons was the giant 30 foot maple in our front yard. It had to come down. It was such a gorgeous tree--especially in the fall. It bloomed the rosiest red. The tree trunk split into two about 5 feet up and then we found out from some tree experts that the split actually went all the way down. It was overhanging some power lines and had the potential to fall back onto our home. So,  inevitably we had to have it cut down. The silver lining is that before you couldn't even see our home because the tree was so large it totally blocked the view but now you can!

Emma playing last fall by the beautiful maple tree

Emma was enthralled and frightened by the men who came to remove the tree. (There was literally a guy climbing the tree with a chain saw hanging from his belt!) We found out when they were here that the tree was actually diseased and rotten in the middle, so it ended up being a blessing that we took it down before it did any serious damage to our home or the surrounding area.

We are sad to lose such a gorgeous gem but so grateful for the extra sunshine on our lawn to grow some grass! In fact, we are working on growing the grass with some seeds now! And I have removed a couple of bushes from the front that were dying. I was SORE for days but it was worth it because now they aren't overcrowding the growing ones. I planted some white azaleas and a peony bush (my favorites!), and some day lilies to grow by the mailbox. Since I took the picture below I have also trimmed the Japanese Maple (on the left side of the photo) back a bit so it's not quite so overpowering.

Sweet girl the day the tree came down. (The bush beside her is one of the ones I removed)

The first peony that bloomed in our garden!

Lots of new growth in our front yard--I'll post again to give more updates on what's going on inside the house! Lots of updates!