Landscaping: Adding a Stone Garden Edge

We enjoyed an early spring, so in between rain showers Matt and I were able to add some new landscaping around our yard. We have about half an acre- I love having space for our kids to spread out, and to garden until my little heart is content. Matt owned a landscaping company for many years, so it has been nice to finally cash in some landscaper’s wife IOU’s 😉 He added a stone garden edge to border the garden, which I love.

Excuse our patchy and un-mowed lawn 😉 The seed is slowly coming in! We planted 2 snowball bushes, lots of peonies, an (apparently) sun friendly hosta, some ground cover and 3 cedar trees. Everything is wee at the moment, but will definitely take off in the next few years. We also put landscape fabric down and filled in the bed with pine mulch.

I found a photo from a few summers ago when we were first siding the cottage…

I love having a defined edge now- and no grass up against the house.

I still have to paint the other window white, and finish installing and staining the deck skirt… but things are really starting to get to a finished state! It’s kind of exciting, and a far cry from this:

*happy dance*

Matt and I are working on a tutorial for installing the cedar sidewall shingles, more popularly know as shakes. I’ll be doing a video and photo tutorial- hopefully you can put it to good use! Cedar shakes make such a great accent in gables, or on sheds and out buildings. I love the cottage character they add.

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My garden is going nuts. I try to walk the yard in the evenings once the kids are in bed- and we do are morning ritual kitchen garden check each morning- something is eating our beans. Any other gardeners out there?

-Miss Ash

PS- you can read more about our siding; the color, the install, and the deciding process here