A Free Fix to an Ugly Problem

Observe our house.  Now notice our walkway.  Now notice the horrid red brick border that lines it.

Now, let your eye search for anything else in our house that matches these bricks.

My point exactly.  Now, point be known...I am not a fan of the exterior look of our house.  There is MUCH to be done.  But for now, I'm looking for a few little FREE things I can do to spruce it up.  

I learned online that there are actually lots of plants that you can "transplant".  You can borrow some from a friend, or from other places in your yard, plant them in new spots then just let them spread and fill in.  I learned the monkey grass might be the easiest of all transplants, since it grows like a weed anyway.

Day 1

Within 30 minutes of gathering this information, I was in my front yard digging up these aweful bricks.  This was my progress after about an hour, before it started raining and I had to call it quits.  

Day 2

I got back at it the next day.

Until I met...and conquered these two beasts (which took about an hour)...

These two chunks, unlike the rest, were actually still cemented to the walkway and the bricks were still cemented to each other.  But with the help of a rock cutter (orange tool above) and a crow bar, I prevailed.  

I stirred up the soil, where the bricks had been and soaked it with water.    

So then I started digging up huge chunks of monkey grass.  I THOUGHT this part would be easy.  It was not.   But I got the hang of it, with a little help and instruction from Chris on how to effectively operate a shovel.  I made sure to get as much of the root ball as I could, but from what I read, it's okay if you can't get it all.

Then I started breaking it up into handful size chunks of grass and root.

I planted my handfuls about 6 inches apart.

All in a days work.  Here's how it look at the end of Day 2.  

I think this picture is a great side-by-side comparison for before and after the monkey grass.  She how on the left side the monkey grass leads your eye up the walkway, around and up to the house.

Day 3

More hard work.  I slaved away on Memorial Day.  Watching the neighborhood families come and go from the pool.  But I did it!  And it was worth it.  

Before:

After:

Once the monkey grass fills in and gets trimmed back a little, I think it's gonna look great.  

At some point, hopefully, we'll plant some shrubs on the right, cut back those camellias on the left and try to get something symmetrical happening with the rest of our landscaping.  It's a start though right?