Front yard: before and after

I never did post pictures of how the front yard turned out. It really took all summer to kill everything, dig up the sod, till it, level it, put in the edging bricks, plant perennials, put in mulch, and plant grass. I can't wait for spring to see if everything comes back and how much it will grow.

Here's the front yard when we bought the house in 2008. Note the size of the baby cedar tree we are standing in front of. The landscaping consisted entirely of yew and juniper bushes.

 Here's what it looked like in October 2011 complete with sitting area (yes, I painted the chairs myself) and new, soft grass. The tree is now taller than the roof line. That's one of our 2 pear trees in the foreground. We're really hoping for pears in 2012.

 Here's the half of the yard that we don't have to mow anymore. Everything looks small now, but give it a few years and it should fill in nicely.

Butterfly Summer

I know this is a very belated post, but I wanted to show some of the pictures we took this summer of the butterflies in our yard and at Perrot State Park. I suspect it was a good year for butterflies because of the heat.

A dark morph female Tiger Swallowtail enjoying our butterfly bush.

 A Silver-spotted Skipper, also on the butterfly bush. Although that bush is not native, it's not super aggressive and it sure does attract butterflies, bees, and hummingbirds. My mom in Fond du Lac has had trouble with it dying after a few years, but I think Madison is just enough warmer that it's ok.

 A male Tiger Swallowtail chasing a dark morph female Swallowtail by our grapes.

Another Tiger Swallowtail on a native thistle at Perrot State Park.

 A Black Swallowtail.

 A good picture of a male Tiger Swallowtail.

 I'm pretty sure this is a Northern Crescent.

 This one is a Hackberry Emperor.

My biggest disappointment is that we also saw many Giant Swallowtails at Perrot and somehow failed to get a single picture. They are not common and I've never seen one in our yard, so that was a real treat.