Eerie Google pre-Strubgrass Streetview

I grabbed this photo from Google Maps Streetview when I heard that Google was back in town creepily snapping photographs of everyone's house. Which I think is really cool and I love using Google maps - but still, it's a little stalky.

Anyway, the above was taken right before we bought the house in 2007 (you can even see the For Sale sign! The house looks cute, if bare. It had just been painted (but they missed a few major spots you can't see in this photo!) Other than the Monster Rhodie and grass (which must have been spraypainted with green foodcoloring, because we never got it that green ever again!), it looks a little sparse and lonely. Little did this little house know that some D.I.N.K.y gays were about to get ahold of it.

Here's what it's looking like today - roughly 100 boxwood hedges later! Of course it helps the before and after contrast that the Google streetview photo is from a gray day with not -great color resolution.

New (partial) fence!

We fenced most of the property a few years ago, but there was an area we skipped because there was a nice greenwall/barrier there already. Alas, the years had worn away the fence that supported the greenwall and it started to get rickety. There was a gap in one corner where Mattie made a break for it one rainy night (not fun for her moms!). Plus, my neighbors would suffer second-hand smoke inhalation every time we BBQ'd.

So we decided to take out the old fence. Actually - my neighbors (including this world-famous blogger) removed the old fence and volunteer cherry trees growing along the border, and we had the new fence put in.

In this picture, you can see that the old fence/hedge yielded many a valuable treasure, including a luxurious pair of muddy longjohns!

The new fence still has that "too new" look about it, so we have our work cut out for us this spring planting some trellis and greening up the place (with anything other than ivy!). I've got cardboard piled on the ground to choke out the grass on the other end. I'm thinking raspberry trellis + some kind of groundcover?