Yay, we have boxwood hedges! Ok, they're not full hedges yet - but they will be in about 10 years! But let's backup. Like all worthwhile projects, there were a few hiccups to deal with. First we had to address this ugliness:


See that spalling brick? We had large pieces of the 60 year old brick breaking off on two of the walls under our front stairs. We knew we had to fix it and sought out a few quotes that came in at... hold your breath... $3000! Yes, $3000 to replace maybe 30 bricks in total. There was no way, no how, I was going to spend that amount of money on such a small job. To me, it seemed like such an easy job that Sean could do himself. He is HandyMan, after all!

But Sean thought otherwise. He had laid brick around the pool at his parents' house twenty years ago and still remembered what a nightmare it was. And so we were at a standoff, Sean yelling and screaming that he couldn't fix it and me dragging him reluctantly to the local brick supplier. The morning he was to fix the brick, Sean was still on the phone to friends trying to track down one last quote from a brick mason... while I ran away to take Chloe to a party, shouting "you NEED to fix it! We're not spending $3000!" as I drove away.

And an hour later, I received a text message showing me this:


Sometimes nagging your husband pays off :)

(Sidenote: ignore that my blue hydrangeas turned green over the course of this project. I told you it took us a long time!)

I had no doubt that Sean could fix the bricks. With that out of the way, we could finally get plants in the garden. I was a bad blogger and didn't take any photos of the actual boxwood install. Sean dug the holes over the course of a week then we added a bit of bone meal and water in each hole and planted the boxwood. We topped each with triple mix soil and organic mulch. So far, we've managed to keep the boxwood alive. But who knows how long that will last... I've already spotted a yellow leaf! #sendhelp #plantsinperil

Coming up, I'll share what plants we picked for the rest of the garden. Hope you are all enjoying the summer and not spending hours digging in dirt like we are!