Outside Project Part 2

So... this portion of the project outside has actually been done for awhile... I'm just real slow at posting. In my defense, I have/had good excuses.

Anyways, we decided to add a planting area to the other side of the stairs. Grass doesn't grow very well there and it's sort of become a mud pit for the dog. We tested out a bunch of "shapes" to see what would look good and what would work with the tree we have. Trees probably wouldn't normally be a problem, but this one has a lot of roots up at the surface of the ground, some even coming up.

We settled on a squarish area about the same size as the one on the other side of the path. Then we got to work... 

 

We didn't get too far because we ran into the root problem. We stopped at this point for the day.

The next day we borrowed an axe and a hatchet from Bill's dad and he worked on it sometime during the next week, I think while I was at volleyball. He got a lot done without me, so I didn't get a chance to snap any photos.

After, we went out and bought a hydrangea, which is one of my favorite more "bush" like plants. To me, that means it gets biggish. We planted that, which involved the destruction of more roots. Hopefully the tree does fine with the injuries. Honestly I won't be too sad if it sort of died... It's half dead already and makes a huge mess all the time. But... then our backyard would be sad and empty.

A couple nights later, again when I wasn't home. Bill rolled out the landscaping fabric and got everything all set up with that and the wood chips. That's really about as far as it got for quite awhile. It was the very least we wanted done before the wedding.

Now that the wedding is done, we've added the arch we got married under/in front of. Insert cute "ahhh"s....

Now I need to find plants and finish planting the area. I would like to find some sort of vine for the arch, preferably a perennial so I don't have to replant every year. Maybe even something that still looks good in the winter... I'm also contemplating possibly planting ferns, hastas, or something with some more color. I'm not really sure how great ferns would look with the hydrangea though... I need do so some research I guess.