'Dirt Art'

So there are lots of different kinds of artists out there.  My best friend is an incredible artist who can work wonders with just a piece of paper and a pencil.  My youngest sister's hair is her medium.  Her hair always looks awesome and I revel in the times when I can get her to do mine.  My other sister is also an incredible artist and great at designing almost anything...I'm thinking specifically of her wedding invitations and the design for them she drew out on a loose leaf piece of paper with a pen.  

That brings me to the title of this post, 'Dirt Art'.  If you hand Anthony a pen and paper and tell him to draw a dog, you'll most likely get an two ovals (head and body), four stick legs, and a little tail...which is pretty much the same thing you'd get from me.  But, if you hand him a shovel and give him a little piece of land, you'll get a perfectly manicured bed.  Throw in some trees and flowers and you'll get an outdoor masterpiece.  Such is the case so far...minus the trees and flowers (they're still up and coming.)  Last week I showed y'all the progress we've made turning our 'weed city' into 'pine straw serenity'.  I also wrote about how we wanted to modify the beds a little and add some more appealing curves.  Well, last weekend my artist went at it.

First, he grabbed an can of blue spray paint we had lying around to mark out where exactly he wanted to add some dimension.  Don't worry, no grass was harmed in this project.  :)

    Doing this gives you a line to follow when you're digging out your bed.  Coloring projects always look better when you stay in the lines.  :)

Then he started making the edge.

   Making a sort of 'cliff' for an edge helps keep pine straw or mulch from overflowing into the grass, maintaining a nice, clean line.  This gives a seamless look to the landscaping.  Many people use brick or plastic edging to separate bed from grass and that works too...whatever floats your boat.

Also, the sidewalk up to our porch lands almost down the middle of our landscaping so to create a continuous feeling, my handsome artist designed the beds to look like they flowed one into the other.  It's kind of hard to explain but let me show you:

In the past two weeks our landscaping has gone from weeds and dirt, to pretty beds, to pretty beds with a little more character, and hopefully next week, to a lush conglomeration of color and definition with curb appeal to boot.  :)

Here's the 'Almost' Grand Finale: