New Garden Areas!

I now have a couple of new garden areas. This one is part of our front yard. 

And this one is out front along our very long driveway, about 3/4’s of the way down our driveway leading to our house. In this photo you can see about 1/4 of the driveway leading to our house. 

The first area is out in the front yard and resulted from Hubby trimming back a bunch of thick brush! After he finished trimming the area, I transported the downed brush into the woods and added it to an existing brush pile. I then trimmed all of the stubs that were left behind and pulled out as many roots and root systems as possible! There were a few small dead trees that I cut down. I wasn’t able to pull out the stumps with roots so I used my battery-operated Ryobi chain saw to trim the stumps slightly below ground level. 

I love my Ryobi chain saw! When I purchased it I decided to get the larger of the two chain saws that Ryobi has available. I also purchased an extra battery so we would have two of them. My Hubby and I have used it a lot! It works great for small to medium, or average, trees. Any large or “huge” trees requires our regular, gas-operated chain saw. But we have been able to use the Ryobi for most trees. We have used it for cleanups after severe wind and snow storms and I have used it extensively for clearing trails out back on the wooded portion of our property. We own 6 acres total and I’m guessing we have at least 4 wooded acres. The batteries surprisingly last much longer than I had expected! It’s nice not having to deal with going to get gas when needed, mixing it with the correct amount of oil, pouring it into the chain saw, yanking in the pull cord several times to start it up, as well as the noise produced by a gas chain saw! The battery-operated chain saw is nowhere near as loud! The Ryobi still requires bar and chain oil, just like the gas chain saw, as well as chain sharpening as needed. But I purchased extra chains and just change them out as needed and take them down to be sharpened by a professional so I can re-use them all as needed.

This is a photo of a tree I cut down last summer when clearing trails out back when I got my new Polaris! The trails were fine for the narrower 4-wheeler but needed a lot of work to accommodate the Polaris! 

My Polaris is so much fun and is quite the work horse too!

Anyway, I need to get back on track! LOL! Getting back to the garden in the front yard: After I was done cleaning out the remnants of the brush and the stumps of the dead trees that I cut down, I ran to the store and purchased premium mulch and spread it over the area. I also purchased two large flower pots that are made of resin/plastic, made to look like whiskey barrel pots, and added new potting soil and 3-month fertilizer and some annuals (yellow dahlias). I also had a couple of extra flower pots and did the same with thee and added impatiens. 

I also purchased a flag with flag stand and a solar light. I have since added a bird bath for the birds as I’ve always had my bird feeder in that area. I have actually had this bird feeder for a while now, out back, but I decided to move it out front where it can be viewed better. 

I have another bird bath in my other garden out front too and the birds really enjoy it. Now they have two bird baths to enjoy! It is so fun to watch them as they bathe! It’s difficult to get a video of this without scaring them away but here is one that I captured just the other day! 

OMG! Off track again! LOL!!

So here is the new garden out in the front yard! 

First, the “before” photo!

And, second, the before and after photos together! 

I initially purchased and added this solar light: 

But tonight while at the store, I couldn’t resist purchasing this solar, color-changing light! I purchased two so I would have one for the new garden out front along the driveway! So pretty! These lights can also be set to one color only or to a white light only if desired! 

I had actually placed an order online for curbside pickup for a 3-pack of different solar lights that were just standard white lights, but when I arrived, they weren’t included in my order as they were out of stock. I was a bit pissed off about it but wasn’t going to leave without some solar lights so I went inside the store to get some and came across these! AND I also found a really cool solar-lighted house number sign for the garden along the driveway! I could not resist purchasing this too! 👍

As a result, I was then very happy that my online order was shorted of the solar lights! I never would have even known that these color-changing lights even existed if this had not occurred! 👍

Here are all of the remaining photos! Some were taken before I added the bird bath. 

My Polaris sure did come in handy for lugging the mulch, potting soil, pots, fertilizer, flowers and equipment around for this project! 👍

This next photo shows my two gardens out front! 

And here is my new garden along the driveway! The most difficult work was adding the fencing since the ground here is very gravely with lots of rocks and small tree roots too! I had to dig for each fence spike (3 spikes per section of fence) to go into the ground without breaking them! It was to dig deep enough for each one but well worth it! 

And here it is at night with the initial, white solar light before placing the solar color-changing light, and before placing my new solar-lighted house number sign! 

And here it is tonight, all completed!