The front of our house is finally looking better, thanks to Eva, Katie, Amy, and Jenny’s brother, Wayne.  They came out in late October to remove the last bits of astroturf from our front porch and scrape / grind off as much mastic as they could in one day.  We have been wanting to get back to this project since we first tackled it in June of 2008, but we have not done anything about it since then.  The front of the house looks MUCH better now and it will be so much easier to keep clean.  (Have you ever tried to sweep astroturf???)  We still have some mastic to get off, but we can save that for a while.  In the meantime, the majority is gone and we are happy campers!  Photos of their work session are here, but there are a couple below.

Notice two things — the dusty haze and the gleaming, astroturf-free porch.  Hooray for the astroturf being gone forever!

While they were all doing that, Frank and I were able to focus on the front yard.  You may remember that we’re going for a front yard that has no grass but instead has edible plants (all of the herbs we relocated from the back yard) and flowers.  We posted about it here and here.  It was looking a bit scraggly and we needed some fall/winter color.  So we focused on that while everyone else worked on the steps.  It was great to be able to have both going on simultaneously.  It would otherwise have taken us 3 full days to accomplish the same amount, and when the astroturf was still there, improving the yard didn’t make enough of a difference just like when the front yard was scraggly, removing the astroturf wouldn’t have been as big of an improvement.  However, getting both done at once was wonderful!

Here’s the end result.  We’ve got mums that will keep coming back for fall color, pansies that will provide color all winter long, and lots more bulbs up front for springtime color.

Yesterday we bought a weeping cherry tree on a whim.  We got it half off, so it’s much more mature than what we expected to buy for the front yard.  They were a bit incredulous that we’d be able to get this 300 pound tree (with root ball) home in the Matrix, but it was just fine.  When we got here, a bunch of neighbors came out and helped Frank carry it up the steps and into place.  Even though it was already dark, the weather was gorgeous so he stayed outside and got it planted right away.  We can’t wait to see it blossom in the spring!

We were happy to see that the weeping cherry had not been stolen when we woke up this morning.  It’s pretty heavy, so we should be ok.  But it’s always good when things aren’t stolen.  Unfortunately we can’t say the same for our second rue plant.  Our neighbor cautioned us that rue is very popular (for some reason) and that every time she planted it, it was stolen.  We weren’t that attached to it — it was just something that we relocated from the back yard.  But sure enough, a couple of months after she warned us, one of our rue plants was dug up in the middle of the night.  Well, last night it happened again with the second one.  I think it’s kind of humorous that with all of the plants we consider more valuable (all of the established herbs), this silly little rue is what thieves go for.  But Frank, of course, is livid that someone would come and dig anything out of our yard.  The good thing is that we don’t have any rue left for the taking.  I guess we won’t be buying any more…

Hi, Frank here – I just want to give a word of thanks to our neighbors for helping us get the tree out of the car and up into the yard.  Special thanks go to Mr. McLaughlin, who is not afraid of moving a 300 lb tree around.  The people in the nursery had us pretty scared about killing ourselves, the tree and our car.  But within minutes of our pulling up if front of our house, Mr. McLaughlin was there with a hand truck and his brother.  We pulled the tree our of the car and onto the hand truck, and five of us hoisted the tree and cart into position in the yard.  If it weren’t for Mr. McLaughlin, I fear the tree would still be sticking out the back of the car.