March De-Cluttering: The Outside Addition

Last week in this post about dealing with my outdoor mess I had mentioned that I was doing some cleaning up.  I’m not sure if this counts to other people or not, but since it made a big difference in appearance and I got rid of things, I’m counting it as a de-cluttering adventure.

All of my flower pots ended up in a big square in my front year.  This square was at one time a flower bed, because of rotten timbers I just had them removed so it could become yard again.

I’d actually removed a few pots before this picture was taking, since it was an after thought.  I also did take the pictures with my cell phone, sorry.

This would be the trash after day 1. 

The pots shown are cheap pots.  The bonus of cheap pots is that they are, well cheap.  The crappy thing about cheap pots is that they usually don’t lost more than a summer in the Texas heat, they get brittle, crack or break when you pick them up.  I’d also whine about how people seem to have a habit of weed eating right against the pots, but I won’t.  First because I didn’t have to do it, and second because really they were stuck in the middle of the yard, then never moved because I never did that ‘I’m gonna’ that I had thought I would do.

The bag of trash is mostly the weeds and grass that were pulled out of the flower pots.

This is another area that I needed to work on.  This is also an after thought picture.  The large orange and green pots off to the left, as well as the two larger white pots on the steps were beside the steps. There were also some smaller pots along the front of the house.

This is the trash from day 1 and day 2.

Are you ready for some after pictures?  Hmmm?  I feel like I need a drum roll for this one!

This picture is why it is nice to take before pictures.  The after picture just looks like a normal yard huh?  But when you see the before picture you realize how much work was really done.

I pretty much weeded any pot that had dead flowers in it.  I was lucky enough to have some flowers that were come back so I weeded their pots, and in a few causes give them more room to spread.  I also planted the dahlia bulbs I bought, the one ‘flower’ I’ve allowed myself to buy so far.

I have learned that fire ants love potting soil, so if I find them in the pot, I totally ditch the potting soil.  Other wise I had to kill them, then be sticking my hands in potting soil with ant poison in it.  I had to do that with numerous pots this year.  Unless the pots were very large the potting soil got dumped into a couple of tubs so I can put it in the pot size I need and use it later.  I’ve got a pile of pots hanging out if I need them.

Of course I had a nice pile of trash when I was done.  And yes I know I could have carried the trash over after each day, but doesn’t this just look like I did so much more work? *wink*

Here is the pile of sticks I gather from the yard.  Sadly there are more out there that I will need to pick up before we can mow.

After 10 trips to the dumpster this is what I had.  I ended up keeping one of the buckets so that I could carry it around the yard to pick up sticks later.

The trays and stacks of little flower pots are going to be passed on to someone else to use, after I finish gathering the rest from off the porch.

I do still have more work to do but this was a great start and it make a big difference in how things looked out there.  I will also confess that I didn’t do anything out in the yard this weekend.  *frown*

But I’m not giving into that *I’m gonna* just yet.



I'm Gonna & The Flower Bed

Ignore the weeds in the picture! :)

A phrase I use a lot is “I’m gonna” and being the procrastinator that I am, the “I’m gonna’s” rarely end up happening.  I forget about them or just keep putting them off.

One of those I’m gonna’s has been to turn the space between my house and drive way into a flower bed.  That is a year old gonna project.  Before that it was to remake the two strips between the drive way and the fence into flower beds.  I did that years ago, but by the following year it was over grown with grass and weeds.  Two years ago I dug up what was left of the bulbs I had originally planted out there, and put those in flower pots.  Last year I even got 6 rose bushes to go along those two strips.  One of them is still alive and they are all still in the pots that they came in. 

In the past I have been really good about rushing out and buying a bunch of flowers then sticking them in flower pots with the thought that they would be transplanted later.  That never happens. 

This year I am trying something different.  I will make the flower bed first.  Novel idea, huh?  Wonder why more people don’t do that?  Oh yeah, they probably do.

Instead of the I’m gonna, this year it is I will!  Actually it is more of an I am, since I have already started the project.

Sunday afternoon I decided to get out there and start weeding the flower pots from last year.  Seeing what, if anything survived, how many pots had fire ants in them, and how many of the pots were broken and needed to get trashed.  I spent about three hours outside, and while I got some of that accomplished, I still had more to go.

Wednesday evening after work I spent another two hours outside dealing with the mess I left last year.  I love that feeling you get when you start to see your work pay off.  Before Sunday my front yard looked trashy.  Believe me I still have a ways to go, but it is starting to look a lot better. 

I’ve decided instead of spending the weekend inside painting like I had originally planned I will now be working outside.  For one, I don’t want to lose the momentum I have going from seeing the yard go from crappy looking to starting to look better.  Second, I know me, this is the time of year I get antsy and want to go flower shopping especially when you start seeing them pop up everywhere.  If I don’t want this to be another I’m gonna year for the flower bed, I need to do it now.  And last but not least, this is Texas, and we are already getting temps in the mid 80s.  It would definitely be wiser to do it now before it gets hotter.

Unless something else comes up, I plan to work outside tonight again.  I have some more picking up in the yard to do, trying to get it ready to be mowed.  If I get that done before it gets dark then I will probably start working on cleaning off the front porch.  It has a bunch of crap on it as well. 

Friday night I plan to go to Walmart, so no working outside then.  I’ll use the evening to do some food prep, catch up on my daily/weekly tasks and maybe to work on my bathroom arts and craft projects.

The weekend plan is to start removing the grass and weeds from the flower bed area as well as finish cleaning up/off the drive way.  While I am working on that I will have plenty of time to think about how I want to set the area up. 

Oh the possibilities!