Bye bye jungle!

I wanted to title this post "Welcome to the Jungle" but blogger wouldn't let me do strikethrough text in the title. Anyway, I think the last time I posted on our yard was October of 2011, 5 months after we moved it. This Sunday marked our two year "house anniversary" and boy have we been working hard on the front yard the last month or so. To look at the 'after' pictures you'd think we were done. I'd say these are not really 'after' but more like in progress. Jason and I guess we're probably between 75%(his guess) to 85% (my guess) done so let's split the difference and say the front yard is 80% complete.  Here is the 'before' picture from October 2011. I tried to add arrows but instead you get numbers. Here is what we have done so far.
1 & 2: taken out those awful junipers and replaced them with grass. Junipers in your yard are of the devil. Their limbs reach out and grab you and scratch you. No joke. Anyway, now my sweet HG has a yard to play in.
3 & 4: took out the evil privet hedges along either side of the yard which walled us off from our neighbors (whom we like) and made the yard look much much smaller. Plus privet is a non-native, invasive species that all three of us happen to be allergic to. Good riddance!
5: took out the overgrown Indian Hawthorns (and one random boxwood) and replaced them with knockout roses. Now burglars and cockroaches can't hide in the overgrown bushes next to the house (seriously, in our home inspection they listed getting rid of those or cutting them way back).

Ta da! Isn't that better? 

I don't post this to get you guys to give us a pat on the back (though it couldn't hurt, right?) but more to encourage us to keep going! We still have two more bushes to remove (one is right up next to the house and the other is right behind Harper's head in this picture), some MORE bushes to trim (I just trimmed the azaleas and pruned the snowball bush way back...camellias are next!) and I plan on repainting the shutters and the front door (which doesn't really count as yard stuff, but still). When we bought the house we loved the yard but I still remember when we were standing in the front yard trying to figure out if we wanted to make an offer saying "I'll get rid of these bushes and trim this and....". So we knew we were in for a lot of work. We love having so many mature plants but a lot of the yard just hadn't been cared for in some time before we bought it. I call it my secret garden and I do feel like Mary from that book! We are making the yard come alive and making it functional for our family!

 Have you guys done any major yard work lately? Anyone need a pile of brush for a bon fire?