Backyard landscaping

We still can't believe our backyard looked like this when we moved in. What were we getting ourselves into? Well let me tell you -we've been hard at work each and every season keeping the leaves, acorns, seeds, pine needles, etc. off of our ground. We have a LOT of trees. Which makes it wonderfully shady in the summer and when the leaves are gone in the Winter we get lots of sunlight. So I guess it's good for our utility bills and the environment, but it's more work than we are used to.  We've dug out several small trees and bushes, including an apple tree that gave us about 1 apple per year since the squirrels would get to them first.  It was also placed very awkwardly in the middle of our yard and growing sideways towards the sunlight.  We've pruned, trimmed, clipped, and mowed. Here are some photos of what our backyard looks like now. It's still a work in progress.

Here's the view from the left side if you're facing our house from the street.

BEFORE:

Here it is AFTER: that is our wood pile in the corner.

You can see that we took out that tree. The grass is a work in progress. With two little boys running around back there we have trouble growing it in. We're thinking about adding a stone walkway around the wooden deck where it's just dirt.

Here is a shot from our backyard looking at the house behind us.

BEFORE:

AFTER: You can see we removed lots of little shrubs and bushes. And even some more trees. Don't worry, there's still tons.

Gosh look at all the brush on the ground. Looks like a fire hazard back here.
BEFORE:

AFTER:

Here is the BEFORE shot where our future swing set would go:

AFTER shot of Swing Set:

Here is the view of the right side of our house if you're looking from the street (this view is facing the street.) There was a LOT of overgrown bushes on that hill. We removed a TON of juniper and pretty much everything else.
BEFORE:

AFTER: Our property goes all the way up that hill, but we decided not to fence in the hill (logistically it was going to be a pain in the you know what.) Our 5 year old son goes up there and plays sometimes.

BEFORE shot looking at the right side of our yard from the street:

AFTER: that wooden thing in the corner is the compost bin Joe built. We'll have a post for ya' on that one later.

We'll also have separate posts on how to build your own fence, making a compost bin, and the installation of that swing set.

Hope you enjoyed a look back at our backyard.  Now I've got to go rake up some more leaves.

xo
Cathleen