This is the second half of my description of our Yard Explosion weekend. I left off shortly after noon, when we decided to move to the front yard.

Mostly before, though we’d already taken down two trees. The men did an excellent job of keeping the trees off the wires.

In between our two properties, Craig/Zoe and Adam/I have had a big, overgrown, bushy mess. Cherry and rose of sharon saplings coming up everywhere, thorny vines, privet, english ivy, etc. So we decided to tear it down and start over. We’re also planning to put in some shared vegetable beds.

Cutting down some straggly trees in the way of our future beds.

You can see the gigantic privet.

Now you can’t. Because it’s DEAD.

Tree goes boom.

We got a fair amount of work done, and continued on Sunday, clearing the strip between our houses all the way back to the back of the houses. Then we went and finished the triangle.

There are at least a half a dozen of those big brush piles…. ugh.

A view of the property line… the neighbor behind us is elderly and the ground have clearly suffered as our did. Not yet sure what, if anything, we can do.

Razed ivy! And a view back to the house form the triangle!

Our most excellent view… we can now see into each others’ kitchens and have pledged to do all cooking and cleaning clothed until we have new bushes grown in.

Another view… we’re clearly going to need a stump grinder.

Here’s the brush we stacked at the curb Sunday. The pile is now much larger, but I don’t currently have any pics.

 You can see above that there are still some bushes there – those are some hybrid azaleas. They’re evergreen, fairly tall and have attractive lavender blooms in the spring, so we left those.

So now we’ve got to get it all hauled to the curb and assessed by the county to see how much it will cost to haul away. If it’s too much, we’ll pay to have a dumpster delivered and removed, but I’m hoping not to have to do that. I’ll be sure to snap a pic of the brush pile at its full glory!

I’m looking forward to getting to the business of putting in the vegetable beds and replanting some bushes for privacy. Not sure what we want to do yet. Could be more tea olives – ad favorite of Adam and I – or its native cousin devilwood. Camellias could also be nice due to their height, attractive foliage and showy blooms. Or perhaps we’ll buy more hybrid azaleas to continue what’s already there. If anyone has suggestions, feel free to pipe up – my goal would be to use Georgia natives, or at least woodland-esque plants (like the camellias, which aren’t native, but a common choice around here).