A couple of weeks ago we were commenting about our neighbor’s yard and how it was such a shame for all of those plants to be so neglected. You see, she has a non-traditional yard with lots of plants and flowers instead of just grass, but unfortunately she has let the house go into foreclosure and no longer lives there.

The house in question with the ‘mow-it-down’ landscaper’s truck

Then Britton and I were working in the backyard and Britton let out a gasp as he walked through the gate to the front yard and saw someone MOWING down all the beautiful irises, poppies, mums, alliums, roses, lavender and so much more. So we dropped everything we were working on and ran over to the landscaper. “Please! Don’t mow these down, or if you are going to, just let us take some plants out first!”

So he said he would hold off on mowing the front side area while we collected the plants. We got as much as we could in one trip. He saw we were still trying to get more plants when he was ready to do that side, so he said he would just leave it for a while and come back in a few days. A few days later he still hadn’t returned which was good for us, but we noticed a sign on her house that said “City Violation: Noxious Weeds -Whole Yard”. We were just amazed. No wonder people think we are crazy having chickens if having roses and irises instead of grass constitutes “noxious weeds”.

Some of the plants we saved from being mowed down

So, anyway, this transplanting from one yard to the other became quite a project. We were thinking of doing something new with the front area anyhow. We mostly spend our time in the backyard with the chickens, greenhouse and vegetable and flower gardens, but we took the hint and decided this was the push we needed to start working on it. (How can you say no to free plants!?) Here you can see some of what it took, just to take out the old stuff! (Plus you know it’s summer when the ice cream truck drives by! 🙂  )

This is the before and after. We are still hoping to fill it in with more wild flowers and other plants so there is less dirt seen but we think it looks pretty good to start!

Front area before with one of the plants and Schnoodle

Front facing the other direction after a ton of work (with Schnoodle and Kitty too!)