The Garage Massacre

The sides of our garage looked like a bomb went off. There was SO much wrong going on here that we spent three summers trying to tame the massacre and was only successful over the past couple of days! 

This is what we started out with:

and the 99% finished project:

So to start from the beginning...

The previous owners had made attempts to use Mississippi stone to cover this area, but only got as far as dumping a HUGE pile of stone next to the garage and over the next year or so it became overrun with weeds.  Once the hubs and I moved in we attempted to kill off the weeds, but we don't think these were your ordinary weeds, we think they were on steroids.  No matter HOW much weed killer we would put down, it's almost like they fed off of it and would come back bigger, taller and stronger. (Which we found out later from a neighbor that the original owners used to have a compost pile around the garage, so that might explain why the weeds grow so well there)

Since we didn't have the means to move all that stone, we borrowed our neighbors rototiller and tilled up the dirt, stone and weeds, raked out all the crap and flattened it out with our improvised compactor aka our car and didn't do anything with it until the next summer when all the weeds came back full force with a vengeance.  We killed weeds AGAIN, rototilled AGAIN and leveled it all AGAIN and repeated the same process next summer AGAIN.  Until this year when we (and probably ALL of our neighbors) had enough of the crappy area decided to take care of business.

We had a few ideas for this area:

• Putting gravel down-we thought that most of it would end up in the alleyway
• Having concrete poured-wasn't in our budget
• Re-seeding and growing grass-definitely a possibility but wasn't sure if the weeds would just take over AGAIN
• Mulching-looking like a great idea

While we were working on our landscaping project the hubs and I FINALLY decided that we were going to mulch this area.

So like the previous years we had the weeds on steroids invaded area:

 

Pretty much the entire time we have lived here I have wanted a garden.  In past years I've done container gardening because otherwise my dogs would stomp all my plants.  I really thought this area would be perfect for a garden because it gets tons of sun and is out of the yard so they can't get trampled.  The only thing I would need is for the hubs to build a fenced in area to prevent rabbits and other animals from eating the fruits and veggies.  It's funny because for years I've wanted this, but when it came down to it this year, I decided against it because with my schedule I don't think I could focus enough energy to keep the garden going.  Maybe next year I'll get my garden in order....maybe.

This area for the past couple of years has been mostly a dumping ground for our old hay bales that we use during fall and old dirt in pots that I no longer needed.

So again, like before, the hubs borrowed the rototiller and got everything turned up.

From there we raked out all the big roots, weeds and grass and leveled out the dirt some.

Then came the "compactor" aka our car, to flatten out the area and level it out even more.

That was followed by the hubs digging down along the edge of the concrete so the mulch wouldn't end up all over the alleyway.



Things were finally taking shape at this point and we were so excited to finally get the weed barrier laid! 

We were not taking any chances with those weeds, so we laid down two layers of weed barrier.

Followed by 2 yards of mulch....

We LOVE how this turned out! It's so much cleaner looking, obviously, and we think that our neighbors and garbage men will agree!

We still have a few things to do:

• Grow some grass on the backside of the garage where the hubs went a little crazy with the rototiller
• Maybe plant some bushes or some grapevines on a trellis to add some color
• Build a fenced in area to hold our garbage cans