The Extra Yard(work)

This spring, we decided that we wanted to have yards (front and back) that we could enjoy in the nice weather and even perhaps during the summer and into the fall. SO we attempted to plant grass. We had tried it before last summer and it didn't take, so we decided that we made two mistakes last year:
1. We waited too long and it was too hot for grass to grow.
2. We did not weeded sufficiently

So we wanted to do if differently this time. We rented a rototiller from the super friendly local hardware store owner (who also told us we probably hadn't watered enough) and we waited for the dead weeds to dry so we could pick them up. We took a little trip in the middle there, so we actually seeded the front twice (my parents helped me clean up the weeds a second time!). We seeded, and watered, watered, watered for three weeks!

And....

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WE STILL DONT HAVE GRASS!! The weeds still grew too fast and covered everything before the grass even got a chance. We kept on watering, though. And this fourth week we also mowed (which we hadn't done for fear of stepping on the imagined "seedlings") and also started to weed. SO> MANY> WEEDS!!! Mountains and mountains of them. But our lawn does look pretty and green (even if it is not grass) and I've decided to go with it. We did spend a small fortune trying to get the grass to grow, so we are not going to be spending more on grass. But we can do other things, like selecting which weeds -AHEM- natural foliage to allow, and what to pull.

I have yet to look up the kinds we have. I just decided to let the ones that look pretty to me (grass like or that look like the ground cover plants that I've seen online) and pull the ones that look like they will develop "toritos" (spiky little buggers that appear on some weeds when they dry out).

We do have some large and small spots with grass. Like this large strip right next to the wall of the house. Some daffodils have taken root but other than that it is mostly grass (and it came up early in the spring on its own, so we think it might have made a comeback from last year's attempt?)

And then there is another spot in the back close to the door that leads to the alley.

can you see the grass there in the center? I'm trying to take out the weeds around the spot to let that grass expand. see the pile of weeds my children are sitting on? it grew high enough to reach the middle horizontal wooden beam of the fence.

Ugly weed part that you are welcome to skip
There is this plant that looks like a scary vine with purple flowers. I remember seeing lawns with the flowers last summer and thinking that if we had to have weeds, why couldn't we have pretty weeds with flowers like that? well, they look pretty and flowery from afar, but they are scary and they have these spiky, fang-like ends, and they look to me like they will be painful to walk on if they ever dry out. So we've been pulling them out. They take hold of the ground with their spider-like ivy arms... ugh! I think they may be creeping charlie, according to this guide. Which is bad news because it might be a perennial :P! They are HUGE so we have been paying these special attention when weeding. But we have to pull almost everything else too :P We have the leafy plantains (also in that guide) and a couple other kinds. Yikes. Okay, on to the fun stuff:

The Bean Pole TeePee 
While we are working on that, I have also convinced my poor husband (who has not yet gotten used to my crazy ideas but still goes with them) to try out an idea I saw in the artful parent.  It's a playhouse created by training bean ivy plants up a tee-pee shaped trellis. So fun! IF it grows. Apparently, on top of everything else that went wrong with the grass planting, we might have bad soil; in which case the ivy might not grow. But it wasn't expensive at all, so it won't be the end of the world (unlike with the grass) if it doesn't work out. But I will water it anyway and see what happens. We also bought some full sun perennials that we'll put close to the entrance and we planted cherry tomatoes (they also grow on vines) for it too.

Yesterday, we went to the store and got our supplies, then came home to clean up the space, pull weeds, put together the teepee, and plant the bean pole ivy seeds all around the circumference of the base.  We planted the two tiny tomato plants too, but not the flowers. I went out with the kids today to take all these pics, weed, and start digging up a hole for the flowers (Miss E put the entire thing in that one hole, container and all, as you can see). Maybe we'll plant them tonight. We also need to finish tying chord all over the teepee to make a trellis.

This is what the ivy will look like if they work out (the green leafy plants at the base of that teepee)



The bamboo we found at our home depot is considerably skinnier, but I hope it wont make a difference once the plants cover the whole thing in a few months.

We are watering everything (though we have reduced it to once a day) in hopes something does eventually spring up. Even if it just stays green and fun to play on, it will be fine with me, to be honest. That was really the goal~ to have a space we could use without fear of allergies and spiky stuff. So -  now I have hopes of pavers and flowers and a sand pit. haha! it never ends with me.

But seriously. I think the square ones would be pretty and they would look nice with the ground cover weedy stuff we have. And it would take less water to keep it green. And we can pick them up and take them with us when we leave....

We could plant flower bushes on the edges of the backyard...  or put pavers on one side of the yard and raised bed planters on the right side of the yard, for veggies!!




The planning is the funnest part :P