Since having Zoe we have pretty much spent NO TIME in our front yard until the past week or so. In September Chris’ mom came to help out and did some super necessary weeding and trimming

It’s amazing that Zoe was so little then!

And now that it’s been another FIVE MONTHS we really needed to tend to things. The great news is that – once again – because we were really specific about making things low maintenance, the yard is a little out of control, but it’s not a fucking jungle. Five months of no maintenance just means too many weeds, not weeds up to your waist, which I am very thankful for.

This area between the planter box and the rest of the yard is always sprinkled with weeds

There were some ratty looking plants that needed some love

And the emerald carpet manzanita was growing in really well, but some weeds were growing in well too

Over the course of a week or so Chris and I weeded and replaced a couple plants. For instance, this long dead plant…

…finally got switched out

It had been sitting dead and brown like that for about 6-7 months. Yes, pathetic, I know.

After all the work things were looking like this

Muuuuch, better. Things are really filling in nicely and I love that even in Winter (well, almost Spring) the yard still has so much wonderful color. Seriously, my step mom did such a good job helping us plan all this out and plant everything. It’s really been one of our most successful projects – it truly is super low maintenance, uses very little water and still has great color in Winter.

Now, the sidewalk strip is not so gorgeous

Yup, totally over grown. There are several problems here: we never weed, there is no drip here (my dad suggested we bring it over, but we were too lazy) and lastly, whenever it rains it carries all the mulch away which makes the weeds even more out of control.

Chris and I spent about 20 minutes weeding while Zoe was sleeping (the car door was open in the above pic because she fell asleep on her way back from breakfast) so we figured we’d knock it out until she woke up. Then it was play time of course. Thanks neighbor’s grassy front yard! 🙂

 But back to that sidewalk strip…

After the 20 or so minutes things definitely looked a lot better

It certainly is far from perfect, but at least it is somewhat tamed. We’re still not sure about this whole situation. We don’t want to bring drip over, but the juniper has not fared very well. We really like the gravel with the stones to step out onto from the car, but that’s about it. So, if any of you have low maintenance suggestions, please let me know!

The last task was finally putting no skid tape on our front stairs

When I painted these stairs I used gloss paint and so when it rains, it’s definitely slippery. I finally decided that after 2 years it was time to get to it. Zoe helped of course

I spread out the tape for the length of one step, then used that as a template and cut the other two down to the same size

And the roll was basically the perfect length for all 3 steps

Zoe supervised, naturally

As she played I rounded the edges (to help it not peel up) and then peeled off the backing and stuck it down

After about 15 minutes things looked great

I always get slightly annoyed with myself when things that I’ve waited on completing for a while (TWO YEARS in the case of these stairs) only take me 10-30 minutes. Or even just an hour. It makes me feel so fucking lazy. But lately I’ve been on a kick of wanting to get a bunch of little things checked off my forever list, so it did feel good getting this finally done. And then Zoe and I got to play in the backyard

It was 73 degrees in Oakland on Saturday. And it was fucking glorious. And obviously Zoe was quite pleased with herself.