Bye Bye Island

I've posted here before about the rather large garden in the middle of our backyard, also known as "the island" around our house. It's been a love/hate relationship with that piece of dirt ever since we've moved into the house. I can't lie, the landscaping that came with the house was one of it's selling points. And properly weeded and mulched (see above taken a couple of years ago in early spring and pre-drought of 2007 I might add), that island is gorgeous. Mid summer in 90 degree heat full of thorny pickers and vines that need to be pulled out, it is a pain your you know what. In terms of yard work, it is by far what we spend 90% of our time working on. We could spend hours on it every weekend and still not be done. Last spring I had it clean and looking pretty. I vowed that this past year would be different, we would finally conquer the weeds! That is until a little vine (kudzu?) that was just a small patch the year before decided to take over the ENTIRE back half of the island. Ha ha!, it laughed at me. Just try to get rid of me. That #*$&% weed buried its roots deep and spread them out wide. You could pull until your arms were screaming at you in pain, that sucker wasn't going anywhere.

No more.

Tomorrow a landscaper shows up to do one thing...bulldoze that island to oblivion and flatten out the dirt in preparation for grass planting this spring. The only thing left will be the cherry tree in the middle and the bench, which will move to be near the swingset. I hesitated on keeping the tree as I think it may look weird in the middle of the yard. However, Ted brought me to reason that it is a beautiful tree and it would be a shame to cut it down. We'll see how it comes back this spring, give it some TLC and take it from there. Cause once it's gone, it's gone. We also thought about just getting rid of the back half of the island and keep the front half and then we decide to just go ahead and get rid of the whole thing. Because even the front half takes up a good deal of our time to stay ahead of the weeds. It's only a matter of time before that vine shows up there too.

Originally we had no plans of hiring someone to do this for us. Ted felt it was something he could handle little by little over time. Then he realized how much work it is for one person to do (I haven't been much help at all in my current state). So we called someone just to see how much it would be. Turns its pretty darn cheap just to have someone clear something for you. There's no replanting or even haul away for them to do since all of the plants, etc. will be dumped in the woods in back of our yard. They said they'd have it done in a couple of hours.

Ha HA! Take that you stupid vine!