yard work, yard work, yard work

We have been busy working in our yard and it's been really fun! It all started when my mom was here - she's an expert gardener so we are always grateful for her help and advice! She got us all started. We bought lots of good dirt to mix in with our terrible dirt so hopefully it will turn out to be o.k. dirt. When my mom was here, we planted petunias and verbena on the back slope. We also ripped out all the overgrown bushes on the front side of our house - that was hard work! Carter was really excited about this - he's been asking when we would be ripping out the bushes because he's always looking for a chance to use the clippers. He helped us by clipping off some big branches so we could reach in and pull the roots out better.This is the new front side yard that Jon and I worked on all day Saturday. We started off with Jon fixing the sprinklers. Once again, we put new dirt in, laid a few stepping stones, planted 3 rose bushes, 2 "yellow pixie" Asiatic Lilies, some "blue bird," alyssum, petunias, marigolds and 3 new bushes in front - a dwarf myrtle and 2 "Golf Ball Kohuhu." And we finished off by laying some bark over the top. Now, our mission is to keep everything alive! I am excited to learn more about roses - if anyone has any good advice, I'm all ears.
Front yard
Front yard
Back Slope
Back Slope