Adding Curb Appeal To Our Home | Front Yard Garden and Landscaping

Looking to add curb appeal to your home? Check out our front yard garden and landscaping project for some inspiration on how to improve the look of your home from the outside. Perfect for anyone looking to spruce up their outdoor space with new flowers. We added pansies, hydrangeas, boxwoods, azaleas and more! We can’t wait to watch our garden grow.

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[Music] What’s up you guys? Welcome to another spring vlog. It has been raining all week. Today is supposed to be another rainy day, but that is not about to stop us. We typically have been doing yard work on the weekend, and this weekend is not an exception. So, I want to get out here and do some things. I basically want to pretty much redo the front of our house. Last year, we did some landscaping that honestly, we kind of just threw together. Like I didn’t do much research. I’ve never been good at landscaping in general. And we just did things in such an amateur way that just wasn’t longlasting. Some of the things that I planted in the front of the house was not just a good idea in general because we don’t get very much sunlight in the front. And then the things that I planted on the side of the house get a lot of sunlight. And it’s like I should have swapped the two. I put partial shade plants on the side of the house. On the side of the house, we get a lot of sunlight, like almost a full day’s worth of sunlight, and the things that I planted over there just don’t do well in full sun. So, there’s just a lot of reworking that we have to do because we did not go into it thinking ahead and planning ahead. We just kind of picked some things, threw them in the ground, and called it a day. So, now that I’ve been educating myself more on landscaping and just edging and hedging and just all the things, the plants that should be in shade, plants that should be in full sun, partial sun, all the things. I want to do it right this time. So, what’s your name, gorgeous? We also want to edge this up properly. We didn’t do any like distinct edging when we started this like planter area. We pretty much just dug up the grass and then we put some fresh soil, planted the plants, and then did some mulch. But I want to actually go and make a nice crisp line that separates the grass from the the garden area. Pull out some of these dead plants that did not make it through the winter. Put some plants that are going to do much better in this shady area and just make it look better. have plants here that are taller and then some smaller ones in the front. And then we’re just going to bring this out a bit more to have more of a garden bed, garden space, and just more area in general to be able to have more layers as opposed to the space that’s given now. So, a lot of work to be done. You can see there’s lots of weeds along this area. Um, there’s a ton more weeds down over there. Um, so I just want to get started on just cleaning up this area. And like I said, it’s raining. It’s drizzling a bit, but I just don’t want that to stop us. I mean, a little bit of water never hurt nobody, right? We got some new hydranger growth going. I love to see that. That is so exciting. I was really nervous about that because the deer were chomping on that last year and then I tried to get ahead of it with some deer repellent but then we would have rainy days and I didn’t come out and spray it again and then they came and ate it anyways. So I actually bought something last year like right before fall that is supposed to repel the deer. It like it almost attracts them because it gives out a scent but then the closer they get it’ll do something. I can’t remember if it was a noise or some sort of shocking situation, but it basically scares them and it I mean it frightens them so they run off. I have not used that yet, but like I said, I did buy it last year and I’m going to give that a try this year around the hydrangeas cuz they obviously love hydrangeas. [Music] [Music] So, we made a big impact on removing the grass and creating like an edging. Now we have to pull all the weeds. There’s a ton of weeds in the rocks and in the mold. Um, so yeah, that’s going to take some time. But then once we finish doing that, that will conclude like the cleanup aspect. And then next would be digging some holes. Well, no. Next would be going out and maybe purchasing plants that we want to put in this area or waiting until some of the plants that I’m growing indoor are like ready to be planted over here. But we basically just have to map out exactly what plants we want on this side and on that side. Maybe some boxwoods. Not too sure yet. Um, but we definitely want like some perennial flowers. Um, I’m growing a lot of perennial flowers, which is nice. Um, so really it’s just more of the shrubs that we’ll probably have to go out and purchase and then uh just go from there. Buy some more mulch, mulch out the whole area. Yeah. So, the cleanup obviously is the more time consuming part, but I feel like it already looks better with just having like this pronounced line and edging. We’ll show you guys. But it is messy because this soil is so so so moist. But it is also so much easier by putting putting this what is this called? [Music] It’s a uh half moon blade. Yeah, half moon. Putting this half moon blade into the soil is like cutting butter. Like it is just it’s so easy because the soil is so moist. So that part is nice. But, okay, back to work we go. So, here’s how the edge looks. Looks so much better. And then over here as well. Looks much better already. All right. Now, to pull in these weeds. He who finds a wife finds a good thing, man. Like my wife is such a team player. Like we’re out here in the mud. Like literally in the mud getting out the mud and she’s not afraid to get her hands dirty and work with your boy. You know what I mean? I love that about her. She’s always been like that since we first started dating, man. And it’s a beautiful thing to have a family and to care for our home and put work in together. You know what I’m saying? They always say a family that prays together stays together, but also say a family that works together and gets dirty together, man, stays together. Cuz we’re out here grinding. We’re out here being uncomfortable in the rain. Getting dirty, getting messy, but we’re doing it together. You know what I’m saying? This is like our our fellowship with one another. You know, our binding moments together. And I really appreciate that. Um, you know, I don’t know what you guys do with your spouses, but find something that makes you guys happy. Find something that you guys are able to do together. And this is ours, man. Like, gardening is going to be new for me. Usually Chinese always always does it, but I’m learning and I enjoy and I’m getting better with my woodworking so that way I can be a better help when it comes to our building when it comes to building stuff for her and building, you know, for us. But, um, I’m excited, bro. I’m excited, man. If you guys been watching us for a minute, you guys see our growth. Like, we’re learning everything, growing, and that’s what it’s about. Look at God, man. Look at God. Piece of crap. Shovel. Wow. Let me just bend it back. Oh, now I broke it. Dang it. Got to put the camera under some cover. So yeah, today I’m just basically pulling the weeds out, um, checking the pH level of the ground, making sure everything is healthy and, um, you know, nutritious for the plants cuz the plants have to have room to thrive in. They have to have oxygen, energy, and they got to know God. You okay? You okay? They just provide oxygen and better living for you and me. And go ahead. I mean, I hear you, but I I feel like I honestly feel like a lot of people do want to have a garden and and reap the benefits of having their own fruits and vegetables and, you know, things like that. But not a lot of people are willing to put the work in, man. I feel like even at the old house where we didn’t have that much land, it was still a lot of work. Like Shane was out there, you know, spraying her stuff, creating her own solutions so that she wasn’t using chemicals on her food and it’s a lot of work. Like she got me out here on my knees, you know what I’m saying? Doing what we do together. Blaming me. You were lit. I’m not blaming you. I’m saying though, when you say that, people think, “Oh, I literally got you out here.” But yeah, we’re literally out here on our hands and knees, man. Just caring for our land, caring for I mean, we don’t have no vegetables yet. We’re just doing the prep work, trying to get some, right? and obviously having nice flowers and a nice landscape, but I mean it takes a lot of work and it takes a lot of learning. Like we’re constantly watching Tik Tok videos, YouTube videos, you know, Instagram res learning and and trying to be better. Like a lot of the things that we actually planted last year, we look back at it and it’s like, yeah, we shouldn’t have done that. Like maybe we should have trimmed this the first time so we don’t have to be doing it. Maybe we should have just trimmed this to last. Baby, baby, cuz obviously life is an experience. So, if you just give up, I mean, what did you actually learn? You know what I mean? Most people desire to do something, but it’s like, are we willing to put in the work? Are we willing to sew or we just wanting a reap? You feel me? Yeah, I hear you. You want to see the beautiful flowers. You want to eat the food and and harvest the fruits and vegetables and things, but are you willing to work toward that? Or if things get a little tricky and a little difficult, are you going to just give up throwing the towel because you couldn’t figure it out, but really you didn’t try. You didn’t put in much effort to try to figure it out. The little rodent came had to try to kill the little Oh, yeah. We got There was a It was a little tiny mouse that Was it a mouse or was it a rat? I don’t know if it was a mouse or a rat. It was it was small. Whatever it was, it was a cute little thing cuz I had a c, you know, I had I had cameras in the backyard. So, um, shiny was like, “Man, I feel like something’s eating it.” So, I ended up facing the camera right on the garden so we could figure out what the heck was going on. And sure enough, you see his little eyes, his little eyes lit up. Um, so I went out there with a uh BB gun and I I had them in my sights, man. I was about to pull the trigger, but I don’t want to hit the wall behind it cuz we had vinyl walls. Um, so I didn’t, you know. So then we end up buying some mouse traps and that took a good what few days where he kept kept taking the bait. Yeah. It would make me so mad because we would see our trap was empty and then we see another brand new tomato half eaten. And it was like, bro, why don’t you eat the whole tomato? Why are you taking a bite out of this tomato and then going to the next one, taking a bite out of that tomato? Like it was pissing me off. It made me so mad. But the traps, we had the old school traps. You put the uh we put peanut butter on one side. Obviously, we touch it. That thing flipped. I mean, the pressure on that thing was bad, too. And I want to say we did sticky pads out there, but he would walk around those. But eventually, we did catch him. More of the story. We didn’t catch him. We did catch him. He ended up dying on on uh one of the mouse traps. No, he didn’t, boo, cuz I’m the one that discovered him. He The mouse trap injured him. So, the mouse trap ended up like snapping him, but he got out. He wasn’t He wasn’t in it. And what happened? He was injured. So he he died away from him. So I I was going I think I was going to like throw some trash away and I saw the mouse trap was empty and you know and then I go further into the side of the house where we like threw our trash away and then I saw him. He was uh he was like breathing a little bit and it was like kind of sad. It kind of made me sad but I was got you suck. Got gotcha sucker. Moment silence for the little homie though, man. No, he he ate too many of my tomatoes. for real. But moral of the story, man, it’s always a battle sometimes. And it’s just like life. Life can throw you some uh curve balls, man. But it’s all about how you react to it and how you move forward. So, whatever your journey is right now in life, whatever the curveball is in your life, man, just hang on tight, y’all. You got this. God got you. mission pushing this wheelbarrow to the back of our lot. I promise you like this lobby getting longer and longer when you’re pushing something heavy and then you got to take the push back up the hill. That’s how I’ve been getting my exercise in lately. I figure if I’m out here putting work on our land, I don’t necessarily have to be inside the jail. You know what I mean? But I’m going head back in here, see what else we can get into before we head inside. So, we just got to Lowe’s right now since we finished all the prep work in the front of the house. Um, now we’re just here browsing some plants. Uh, so I did some research before we got here to figure out what’s best for that area. Uh, right now we kind of get like a lot of water in that area because there’s not much sunlight. So, we’re trying to figure out what plants like the shade and like to drink all the water up. You know what I mean? Especially with the water um being near the foundation of the house. We walk past this plant right here and it smells like straight perfume. Like really, really, really good. I think Chinese probably grab one of these bad boys. That’s the name of it right there. Purple hygien. But man, that smells really good, man. I’ve never really smelled a plant that really smell like perfume like that. That’s crazy. See, [Music] that I mean, look how that’s crazy to me. So, we put all the weeds out. We edged between where the mulch area is going to be and the grass. And now tomorrow, we’re just going to come back out here and start um planting. And then we bought some more mulch. So, we’ll be really, really, really, really good to go, y’all. What’s up, you guys? It’s another day. We are back out here. Today it is much more pleasant and bright and sunny. It is time to start putting some of these plants in the ground. Um I’m not sure if we shared what we got from Lowe’s or like where we even left off at, but let me show you guys the plants that we got. So you can see how shady this area is already. And it is it is 11:36 a.m. and this area is already shaded. So that’s why I went ahead and bought plants that do well in limited sunlight. So this one is P PJM rodendron. Rodendrum rodendron. I’m not sure how to pronounce that. This is my first time ever planting this one. It looks beautiful. Already has blooms. These bloom in the spring, which is always nice. I like to see that color immediately after winter. Um, I only got one of these. It says it does well with three to six hours of morning sun. Um, but yeah, this one’s really pretty. It has really pretty pink blooms. Look at that. So beautiful. This one grows up to 5 ft tall, which is really nice to give this area a little bit of privacy if we decide to like sit on a chair or whatever. So, that’ll get some height and that’s nice. We also got three of these boxwoods. These are the Green Mountain boxwoods. Um, we got three of these. They’re they’re really tiny. We got the bigger ones over there for that project on that side of the the yard, but we figured we’ll just save money and start smaller over here. These were only $10.98. And these also do well with 3 to 6 hours of morning sun. And the height for these, I believe, is like four. Yeah, four to five feet tall, which is perfect for basically the height um below the window. That’s about four 3 to 4 feet. So, it’ll be a nice little cascade of greenery like underneath the window. One right here, one right there, and then these we previously planted. I probably should not have planted them here because I think these need a lot more sun than they’re getting over here, but we’re just going to leave them there and see how they do. I bought these a week ago, I believe in a previous vlog. I shared these um pansies that I bought. These are obviously annuals and they’re going to be just kind of bordering this area. And then once those die off, we’ll probably do something different. Maybe some perennials or something. Not quite sure yet. These were on clearance. Now, you see how messed over they are. They’re just I mean, they don’t look they don’t look like they’re in the greatest condition and I just knocked off a flower head. But these are daisies. English daisies to be exact. These are perennial flowers, which is beautiful. I love me a good perennial. They they seem to have like a pink tint to it. These are also the same English daisies, but these have more of a white. This was my first time buying clearance plants that were just not in the greatest condition. They were 50% off. So, these were each $2, and I was like, you know what? Let’s just get them. Let’s bring them back to to beauty. Yeah, these bloom in spring. These are also 3 to 6 hours of morning sun. So, this is basically our 3 to 6 hour sun sun sun area. We got more pansies. What is this? I cannot remember what this one is, but I bought it last year and it just did not do good over here. It just didn’t. I don’t know why. I don’t know if it’s dead or not. I didn’t really check the branches to see if there was like any life left in it, but it looks it just doesn’t look promising. So, I may just completely remove that and we’ll figure something else out for this spot right here. This one we planted last year. This one is a barberry. It’s already getting its leaves back. So, it is so nice to see that it’s already getting its leaves back early spring. Then, I showed you guys already our hydrangeas. Those are doing well. Already starting to green and hopefully get some blooms very soon. We have another barberry one. And this one’s doing well. And then here’s some more plants that I got off the clearance rack. These are some full sun perennials. Got these for $2. These are primrose. You can see how not beautiful they are right now. But again, I’m I’mma bring those back. I walked past these and oh my gosh, instantly smelled a beautiful fragrance from these and I had to get them. These are spring blooming purple hyestent. These need six plus hours of sunlight. I mean, they smell so good. Look how pretty the blooms are once those open up. And it is time to put these in. So, let’s get to work. [Applause] [Music] Hey, hey, hey. [Music] It’s rain. [Music] Good job. Tired. So everything is in the ground. It’s already looking so much better. Looking so good. I’m so excited about it. Can’t wait for it to grow. Um, now we’re going to do the mulch. I want to just show like the little ditch situation that we did. Basically, from what we learned, it’s just going to create a very clear division between the mulch and grass because the mulch will go ahead and lay in the little like V-shaped ramp so that no mulch like spills over into the grass and then the grass will obviously stop at where I guess like the edge of the grass is. Basically, the maintenance would be Jeremy just cutting the grass with an edger. [Music] That’s better. [Music] Thank you. [Music] What’s up you guys? It is April 5th. It is not April 5th. I’m like, okay, I kept saying that date in my head. It is now May 7th. Many many weeks have passed since we’ve like shared the new like garden area and the new plants that we added to the front of the house. We’re just going to keep it very very real in this video because it is very easy to go to a nursery, buy some plants, and then plant them in ground and then show a video of how everything looks. But then time passes and weeds grow, some things die back. I mean, life happens, right? Gardening is a journey. There’s a lot of upkeep, there’s a lot of maintenance, and I’m just going to share with you guys basically how everything looks, how things have grown, how things have died, and just kind of show the real. So, here is our garden area, our landscape garden area. And as you can see, first and foremost, this bush that we got that when we first got it, showed you guys, it had a lot of blooms. Those are spring blooms. Um, but it is an evergreen, so that’s good. So, it remains like this all year long. So, no no flowers, which is always sad to see. You know, down here, all of our pansies have grown quite a bit. But as you can see, there’s also a lot of grass that we did not intend to grow in this area. Seeds kind of blew over from the intended grass area. And so we have a lot of grass sprouts. We have a lot of weeds growing in. So that is something that we have to get to ASAP. As you can see here, this space is completely bare. Those were the plants that I got on clearance. The ones that didn’t look the hottest at first to begin with, but for the most part, they were still alive. They were still doing well. Now, you can see there’s nothing really here. And this is what we have left of the plant, which is very, very, very sad. I think it completely died here. This one is trying to give us a little bit of life. And then this one a little teensy wintsy bit of life there. Um, I’mma do my best to try to get those to grow. But what really messed us up was when we went to California. I mean, these were fairly new still, which required a lot of watering on the days that it did not rain. So, when we were gone, the week we were gone, we didn’t get a lot of rain, which was a bummer because we came back to a lot of these like just being fried and dehydrated. So that was that was a shame. So here are some more patunias. Obviously the flowers die off, new ones grow. That’s basically what’s happening here. But you can see we have a lot of grass sprouts and some new weeds growing in. I ended up taking out a plant that we had here. I can’t even remember what it was, but I ended up putting a lavender. Um, I put this one in maybe a couple maybe a week and a half ago. It’s already growing a lot. Um, these are the ones I grew from seed. It’s doing good. These also are not doing the greatest. Obviously, they’re not dead. Our boxwood that we planted is doing really good. This one is doing really good. The leaves have really pretty colors. Um, it’s just getting very bushy, which is very, very nice to see. These over here, these are obviously the ones that we put in that we got from Lowe’s. It blooms so pretty. I don’t know if I have a photo or a video when they were like in their full bloom. You can see it. I mean, these are a spring bloomer, so not much is going on now. These are really nice, bro. They look right. Yeah, these are hydrangeas. Looking so good. We are very proud of this. This was one of the things we came back home to after our trip to California and we were so pleasantly surprised to see how many leaves have grown like how big and bushy. Like I promise you once we left it was completely bare. Like you could see little sprouts happening but once we got back there was just a ton of leaves. It was so exciting to see. So that was nice. And you can see those two down there are also doing really well. So I also added in this little hissup. I feel like it’ll really start to pick up and thrive once we get like really warm days, lots of sunlight. But for now, it’s hanging on. In the video we shared my neighbor giving us some of these hostas. They’re growing really, really well. Especially for being in a new location. We just completely uprooted them from her yard and and planted them over here. These are spreaders, so I do anticipate this area getting really big and bushy with hostas. So, that’ll be nice once it fills in. I also added in these patunias that I grew from seed. They’re doing okay. My dog just tried eating it. Once it really, really warms up, these are going to just really start to grow really well. Another hop there that I added that I grew from seed. Barberry. Burberry. Can’t remember how to pronounce that. Doing really well. I’m not too sure what this is. I decided to leave them and let them grow because they they’re interesting to me. They look interesting. If you guys are familiar with this or have any idea what this is, let me know whether I should keep it or not. They look pretty invasive, so I don’t know about that. But yeah, moving on. I think we got some hydrangeanger flowers trying to pop in. very excited about that. But they look really, really good. And then down here, our aelas are doing well. We got some leaves growing. We got some I don’t know who was trying to get underneath, but somebody was burrowing down there. Um, we should probably fill that back. We have some pretty flowers down there. That’s always exciting to see flowers growing. Lots of mushrooms over here. Yeah, another aelia with some blooms coming. And then this one down here is uh a little behind schedule, but yeah, he’s catching up. Some weeds are growing in, but again, maintenance. And one thing that I’m trying to do is be ahead of the game when it comes to weeds, especially in the springtime because that’s when they just like grow like crazy. So, that’s probably what I’m going to do today. Just pick some of the weeds that we see maintenance, you know, just the upkeep of gardening. We would love to plant some more things down here. Um, I have things growing in the basement that are under the grow light. Um, and we’ll eventually add them up here. But yeah, that’s that is the realness of gardening. Cuz I feel like too often we see so many people do projects, gardening projects where they’ll go to a nursery, they’ll buy all the things, and they’ll plant them, and then the the garden area looks beautiful, but then it’s like they don’t share the update or share weeks later or just, you know, Yeah. It’s just a journey overall. Gardening is just a journey. And I just can’t wait until years down the line. These things like boxwoods, like these boxwoods, just grow really big. Like right now, they’re very tiny. Especially these ones over here. But yeah, this is our update. This is just the truth and the realness. One day I’ll be able to come out here, admire my garden, see lots of greenery, see lots of blooms, and just enjoy it. Admire it, you know. But right now, it’s a work in progress. Yeah. I hope you guys enjoyed this video. I hope you appreciate just the realness and the honesty of it all. And I know you guys will give us some tips, but let us know what you think and what we should do with some of these things. But thank you guys for watching. [Music]