WE DID IT.
We have a front garden now- for the first time in quite a long time! Remember how worried I was when I started on this adventure? See here… “Project Outdoors: The Beginning”
Over Memorial weekend, we dug in… literally. The hot part of the summer is coming quick and we wanted to be sure that all of our plants from Home Depot had time to adjust to our ground before asking a lot from them. This was such a major accomplishment for me and basically the highlight of the whole project for me, despite delays and set-backs, was that I did it. We did it. We did more than we though we could do and that alone was worth the experience.
Well. That great feeling AND an amazing raised flower bed that the neighbors have stopped by and complimented us on. 
I’m not going to lie- it was a lot of work but overall it was much easier than I though it would be. With my father-in-law and other family involved helping us, it was pretty easy.
After we had the supplies, we re-measured the ground and laid out the pre-treated landscape timbers. I was glad that Ben was doing it because I am pretty haphazard about these type of projects and eyeball things when I should have a measuring tape.
Earlier this week I showed most of our shopping trip to get the supplies. This trip we actually committed to purchasing everything we needed in a eyes closed tight jumping in the pool instead of just dipping our toes in kinda way. Bonus: the landscape timber we picked we got ON SALE. Score!
We walked through the garden section and quickly decided on some low maintenance plans. The employees at Home Depot were helpful for us to find plants that would thrive with morning sun. We decided on Knockout Roses, Boxwoods and… those spider plants as a filler. We were able to re-purpose a few plants that were in the back of our house to anchor the end of the flower bed. We hope to do more, but we felt just getting these plants into the ground was important!
When we got back to the house it was GO time. I grabbed my snazzy looking new gloves and …. was asked to go watch the boys in the back yard. You know you have to kind of not be much of a help when you are OFFERING to help and being out of the way was more helpful.
I had my time to shine soon however! The boys and I watched as Ben pulled out these large, over grown bushes that no matter how much we tried, just didn’t fit into our simple plan. They were awkwardly far away from the house and pulling them made more sense. However, we hit a small hitch in our plan as Bear, my sweet just turned 6-year-old, had moral issues with us pulling the bushes! I had no idea he would care but he started crying and thought we were being mean to the trees… DARN YOU THE LORAX. We explained to him that we needed to pull them out to make room for the new ones and tearfully he said it was ok. 
Bug really was upset for a second as well until we explained to him he could “help” pull them out- ie. sit in the car. Immediately he was fine. As soon as we pulled the bushes we loved the pre-after look! So much better already!
I watched as the raised flower bed took shape quickly in a few hours. They sawed the pieces the right length and nailed them together for support. For an experts view on it, check out the professionals at the Home Depot site on How to make a Raised Flower Bed and check out The Garden Club for amazing and helpful tips- we really couldn’t have done this project without their in-store and on-line tips- throughout this process I kept checking back on the website to make sure I had all my materials to compelte this job.
We pulled some native Arkansas stones that we had in the back yard to soften the harshness of the tall side and the project was done! Errr– kind of… One thing I didn’t think about was how much DIRT was needed to now fill up the raised bed. Luckily, we had a large compost pile in the back yard that we started a few years ago and never did much with. The soil was rich and looked as good as the few bags we did buy to put the plants in! Win! Also, digging up all my pesky grass was a huge hassle (and smoothing out where the bushes were as seen in the below picture) but a great work out!
We carted about a dozen wheel barrows full of dirt to fill in the front bed, then planted the first few plants. The feeling that we had when we went to be was amazing! Stay tuned to tomorrow to see the whole Before/After reveal! We are so thrilled to have been able to partner with Home Depot on this project- we couldn’t have done it without them!
It’s home improvement time, and The Home Depot has everything you need to #DigIn for Spring. No matter what projects you want to tackle, they have great values on all you need. They’re ready to help you with renovation ideas and expert advice, too.
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This is a sponsored post written by me on behalf of The Home Depot.
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