I really can't remember what inspired me (it was a long day) but somehow I was inspired to go spend my day tearing out old flower beds, mowing the lawn, and emptying the koi pond. I am not an avid gardener by any means and in fact I am pretty sure I do not have a green thumb but I do enjoy getting out and getting my hands dirty in Gods beautiful earth.
The prior owners of this home must have had nothing else to do with their time BUT garden. There are flower beds everywhere which was a big selling point for us. But now that we live here--holy cow is it alot of work! There are 3 medium size flower beds right up by the house in the backyard and then in the back of the property there is one HUGE flower garden. The huge one just hasn't had any attention this year. It is totally overgrown and useless to us as a family. So we have decided to simplify for next year. Much of the back flower garden will be gone next year. Our pastor and his wife are giving us a great wooden playset that we will put back there and in another part we will put a seating area and a small fire ring. We will have a few plants here and there but it will definitely be more manageable than this years jungle. The beds up by the house are getting cleaned out as well. We hope to have a deck off of our dining room by next spring so they would be covered over anyhow. We have been slowly selling off the koi pond elements (fish, plants, etc...) on Craigslist....way too much upkeep and way too many mosquitoes for our taste!
So that was my day yesterday. Super fun! I even made a great little walkway to the back of our yard with pine needles. Now we just a few fall leaves on the ground for the perfect ambiance.