Thank heavens for Brandon's Green Thumb!

Lucky for us and our neighbors, Brandon is quite a landscape artist...and when we moved here, he definitely had his work cut out for him!

Before...

(this was taken right after the insane growth had been chopped down...this spring it looked like "the Secret Garden"...it was out of control!)

During...

After...

After Poison Ivy, Poison Oak, and Poison Summac, after hours of hacking down 6 foot tall weeds, wrestling vines, and balancing precariously on the other side of the fence to attempt to transplant a stray rose bush....after searching Lowe's for their $1 half-dead plants, after resurrecting said plants, after salvaging and painting fence posts the neighbors were throwing out, after digging up brick after brick and relaying said bricks, after shoveling dirt and creating a retaining wall, after watching in amazement at the spontaneous growth that repeatedly took over everything, after transplanting daylilies, after creating a fountain...and mainly, after lots of sweat, blisters, and hard work!!! (all on Brandon's part, although I did supply lemonade and sustenance :)

Brandon sculpted the face for the fountain, and recycled the bricks from the brick path to make a retaining wall. I couldn't figure out how to turn the fountain on, hence the reason the water's not spewing out of the creature's mouth.

I'm amazed at how fast things grow--we planted most of the flowers from seeds...and lots of the vines just grew on their own (yes, I'm sure some of them are weeds, but they look pretty and are free, right?)

Thanks to our friends, the Muldowney's, for giving us the pots and cool wire decorations!

It's Brandon's dream to put a sandbox and play house behind the picket fence...we'll have to see!

If anyone has any tricks for keeping the squirrels from eating our sunflowers and strawberries, let us know (any humane tricks--rat traps are definitely out!)