In time for fall

This here is a photo of our house just before we moved in over a year ago. I would include a current photo as a comparison, except that the utter lack of contrast would make it pointless. I've done exactly nothing with the yard since we moved in and, lets say, the lack of eye candy has started to haunt me.

Granted, the Nothing has meant zero work for me out in the front yard, which is good for a lot of reasons (one being that I can avoid long drawn out conversations with our neighbors while their children run pantsless on our lawn), but it's gotten to the point where the Nothing-ness is more annoying than beneficial. Even if it means I do have to engage in the occasional neighborly conversation about tree-trimming, parking faux pas, the evil New Two Story House going up three doors down, etc.

So, with shovel in hand, Hubby and I will do battle with the front yard this long weekend and hopefully transform the All Lawn Yard into a mini hillside complete with trees (I have two Japanese maples waiting patiently in their pots) and space for drifts of future plants. Lambs ear? Hostas? Misc bulbs? Definitely NorCal native plants.

Whatever ends up out there, I imagine, will be better than the boring, water-sucking, mower loving, leaf collecting, weed encouraging grassiness that currently invites people (mailmen, Jehovah's Witnesses, scamming door-to-door salesmen, pantless children, dogs with ill-behaved owners) to trample across it at all angles while they make their uninvited ways to our porch.

Sorry, I'm derailing. The current influx of knockers on our door is getting to me.

All that aside, I'm looking forward to dressing up the pig that is our front yard with some seasonal color and dimension.

Oh yes, that's right - leaves are going to be changing to season-appropriate colors right in our yard! Hello Red, Orange, Yellow, Rust, Lime, Kelly, Coral and Sage - you will no longer be figments of my imagination!

The first of two such transcendent trees to grace our yard:

Leaves turn brilliant scarlet in fall. Otherwise dark burgandy foliage will be falling all over my yard and I just don't care. Hello rake!

Leaves turn golden in fall and coral bark color intensifies in winter.

Lime green leaves emerge in spring.

Now, let me set your expectations appropriately, the potted lovelies we'll be planting aren't as big as these, but they will be. Someday! And regardless of their size, their leaves change color just the same. And since I'm actually planting them when I'm supposed to (fall), I'm hoping they'll live to see a simliarly glorious full grown size.

If all goes well, there will be many more trees planted on our property. We already have two spots earmarked in back. There will be an orange tree, oh yes. And, dare I say it, a birch! And more maples.

Who knew I'd become some sort of tree whore? Amazing how these things happen in Suburbia.