Cheering - For Hacking Down Shrubbery

Who thought pruning shrubs would elicit whoops and hollers from the neighbors! But, we got cheers today because we hacked down the overgrown bushes in front of the house. Literally, a neighbor walking by raised his fists in the air in a sort of victory move and started yelling, "woo hoo, hooray, awesome!" Then, he welcomed us to the neighborhood. LOL! Guess he is not a fan of 10 ft. elaegnus.

We had a to-do list prioritized in the order that we felt were critical and/or how we needed to budget. Sprinklers were near the top of the list because the house has foundation issues. We knew this and had prioritized installing sprinklers. Beautifying the exterior landscaping was a very low priority. No, we didn't actually LIKE the overgrown shrubs, but we had bigger issues to deal with.

Well...best laid plans and all. sigh. Hacking down the 10 ft. elaegnus went from low priority to immediate need. I couldn't get in the bushes to install the sprinklers, nor could I get the sprinkler's spray to reach the foundation though the bushes. So, with sprinklers on the critical list, we now had to hack down the bushes. No small job! Here are before and after pictures. You can see how big the bushes were; the husband is standing with the chain saw. We decided to trim the elaegnus as ornamental trees. Since we will have the foundation piers put in soon, it won't matter really about the roots of the bushes anymore.

Yes, there was a house under there!  Now imagine these with nice flower beds beneath. That's the long-term goal.

In case you are wondering about the boxes in the flower bed, it was covered in weeds and johnson grass. So, I just recycled my moving boxes as compost and weed killer. In the fall, I'll dump a bunch of soil and compost on top and plant my flowers right on top. Or, if they haven't decomposed enough, I'll pull them up and just plant straight into the bed. The weeds are long dead already. By fall, they'll be dirt.