Bye bye bushes

I know I haven’t shown y’all very many pics of the new house… It’s not because I don’t want to, it’s because A. it’s a disaster! and B. We’ve been maniac-ing so much that I don’t have time to edit pics and post. Bad me. I did show you a few when we first moved in and gave some funny deets about living in an old house. I’ve also been posting a lot on instagram. Needless to say, here’s the backyard. It’s uhh… bushy. The house was owned by the same family for the past 67 years! True. They kept her up nice, and clearly, they liked bushes (that’s what she said!). So, the backyard is shaped like a U. This is the patio portion of the U, I’m standing on the stairs that lead up to the back door.

Here’s a view from the salsa garden:

And here is the skinny potion of the U:

Now let’s take a closer look at this pic… behind the lovely row of bushes is about 6-10 more feet of dirt and then another row of bushes. We have big plans to rip out those bushes and make one big ol’ patio/ deck. You know, one day.

I can home from a meeting last week, to find this happening:

Andy totally maniac-ed the bushes. Literally gorrilla style ripped them out of the ground. This picture pretty much sums up how he removed all 14 bushes…

Bye bye, bushes. Oh and check out all of the free patio furniture we inherited with the house. We got 11 pieces!  Including 6 chairs, 2 benches, 2 rocking chairs, a lounger, a cute little round guy that you can see in the below pic. We also inherited that bird bath and broken garden saint. 

Hi bushes. You’re gonna look real good as mulch. Promise.

And here’s a side view of our de-bushed, soon to be a real patio:

Just for fun, let’s check out the before of that angle. (Here’s more about the salsa garden too!)

And here is one more before:

And here is the after… And if you notice, that’s one of our estate sale finds living outside as a coffee table:

And here is the new view from the salsa garden (the tree is hiding the benches). So, why do you think they had bushes lining the patio? Look at all of the extra room!

Oh and here’s the other side of our U shaped yard. We built a compost bin in that corner and did a ton of yard work over here too. More on that soon.

What to do with the bushes once Andy gorilla ripped them up was the next big dilemma. In Austin, they only collect large brush twice a year! That’s crazy, right? They make it into “dillo dirt“. The City of Austin collects yard trimmings each week, but there a million rules. Small branches have to be tied in bundles no more than 50 lbs, bag yard trimmings in kraft bags, oh and if you put yard trimmings in plastic bags, they charge you extra!  See all the Austin yard trimming rules here if you don’t believe me. Lots of rules over here. So, we rented a mulcher for $30 for the day, and mulched up bazillions of pounds of yard goodies. More on that bad boy soon.

Anyone else have lots of trash pick up rules? Or gorilla style ripping out bushes? Or building a compost bin? Or extending your patio? I’d love to hear…