Lots of mulch.

Today we had a special delivery of 10 cubic yards of mulch in our driveway. I put down a 8x10 foot tarp and it is completely buried.

10 cubic yards of mulch.

 A big pile of work next to my new wheelbarrow.

I finished up for the night a bit ago at around 9 because I couldn't see much anymore and I was being swarmed by mosquitoes. I came home from work early at 4 so I could get to work on it. Today reached a high of 87 degrees and was very humid (70 degree dew point) - it was great.

I got the Calum Memorial Garden mulched first, then pretty much the whole front yard, and then part of the side. I still have some areas in the backyard that I plan to mulch, but I need to pull some stuff first. I think I might end up with some extra.

However, this seemed like a logical time to make some changes so I could mulch some more areas... I ended up pulled up the other 2 holly bushes (they were in the worst shape of them all), so now we have no more holly bushes. And I was very close to pulling up the overgrown bushes in front of the window, on the left in this picture:

Current front yard landscaping (you can see the new mulch on the left).

But I held off... for now. My wife and I discussed it and I think we're going to pull it up along with creeping juniper next to it (I'm not strongly opposed to it, but my wife doesn't care for it, and it is probably the area of the yard that gets the most sun, so it has potential to house some sun-loving plants). I don't have much planned other than removing them and mulching, though, and that's kind of a problem. Here's a visual of my current thinking:

The game plan.

Remove the two bushes and split the decorative grass into two and transplant them over to that area. The problem with the decorative grass where it is now is that it's too big and blocks the view of the rose bush behind it next to the garage. It also blocks a sprinkler head that is there. I know "twos" aren't typically a good design, but I feel like it would look better than keeping it as one. Perhaps I could break it into three, or plan a third type of grass with it. I don't know. Or maybe this is all just a bad idea. The upside is that it would give us some of the more sunny areas to plant other things.

I think I'm going to do it. And if worst comes to worst, we can always try again.

Here's a rough idea of what I'm thinking:

What the executed plan might look like.

If this is accurate (and it's probably not), then the grass may not be enough to block the view of the irrigation system back-flow valve that sticks up about a foot and a half or two. We may need something a bit taller.

Here is a blank canvas for pondering ideas:

What should fill that void?

I'd say that area gets part to full-ish sun. Anyway, I don't know what to do... time to sleep.