Out of the Weeds

When C closed on the house, here is what the front looked like:

Cute, but the overgrown pink crepe myrtles touching the house presented some issues: 1) impeded entry to the porch and obstructed view from the porch; 2) their contact with a 90-year-old wood house is conducive to wood rot and probably termites; and 3) those things drop pink flowers all over the white porch. Also note the amount of dead leaves on the palm tree (unfortunately) growing in our back yard.

Before starting work on the house, we had it tented for termites. My laziness prevented a picture of the sweet patchwork tent, but I did get a picture of the house with the "poison" warning sign out front. This pic also shows the first round of landscaping work:

The crepe myrtles were removed and replanted in the backyard, and the palm tree was trimmed.

The backyard was pretty crazy-looking before.

Ex. A:

Ex B:

There were two separate decks and a deck pathway... Luckily, my parents have a great landscaper, and he worked all kinds of miracles. In the front, he put in little ferns and gardenia bushes:

I planted the potted hibiscus!

In the backyard, he added sod, a flagstone patio, and some white crepe myrtles: