DIY Landscaping Tip: Think About Winter

Here's what happened in the Midwest this week:

The news stations had a hayday, coming up with kitschy names for our first 'blizzard' in many years like, 'snOMG', 'snopocalypse', 'snowapalooza', 'Blizzard of Oz'.  This picture was taken post-'snownami', believe it or not.


Does this picture make it look more dramatic?

How about this one?

Or this one.  I mean, there should be stairs there!

The Stallion and I worked from home for two days.  In a row.  The Stallion works in advertising, which is notoriously fast-paced as it is.  Add to that the fact that his client is Gatorade.  Add to that the fact that the Superbowl is on Sunday.  Add to that the fact that things (read: fires) notoriously crop up in the few days leading up to the Superbowl.  Just take it from me - it was a fun (read: tense) few days of cabin fever (read: our house is too small to house all that stress).

We went out for cocktails and socializing at the end of Day 2 (read:  we're still living together).

Last year, I shared with you our journey in completely redesigning the landscape of the front of our house.  One of the things I really don't like about traditional landscaping is all the evergreen shrubbery in great long lines of squareness.  There's no varying textures, colors, shapes, or sizes.  The Stallion is on the same page with me in that regard, so we did our best to bring the most variety into our landscape, and the least amount of evergreen.

There's a reason professional landscapers use evergreens as a foundational element in their designs.  Can anyone guess what it is?

Just look at how barren our front yard is.  Yes, granted, it is covered in a lot of snow.  But barren it is, believe me.

Planning your plants is an extremely arduous task, and The Stallion and I lost steam when it came to having to make adjustments on the fly based on what was (and was not) available at the nursery the day we went to pick out our actual plants.  We didn't have the energy to re-analyze our entire plan to ensure we'd have color through all 4 seasons.  We didn't have a back-up plan prepared.  We had to wing it.

Looking back, I don't think I'd change a thing.  I absolutely love what we did, but hindsight is 20/20, and I wanted to be sure to share this thought with you all.  Wintertime is definitely something to think about.

But me, I can't wait until I see this happening.  Can't. Wait.