Welcome to Debbie-Dabble Blog!!
I am so happy you decided to stop by!!
Blogging has always been a stress reliever for me along with an avenue to share my passions which are my home and my garden.....
I
feel it is a personal Journal that, hopefully, someday, my Twin
Granddaughters will be able to look back on to learn about who I
was....
I will be posting 3 times a week on MONDAYS, THURSDAYS and SATURDAYS....
As always, click on each picture if you would like to enlarge it....
PINTEREST
A NOTE ABOUT COMMENTS
I
enjoy reading your comments and will return the favor by visiting and
commenting on your blog or reply to you directly here if you do not have
a blog but I do have my comment section set to Moderation due to
spammers and hackers so your comment will not appear immediately...
And since I have a very busy life, like most of us do, it may take me awhile to return your comments but I promise I will....
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In my last post, I shared that I cleaned up, weeded and mulched the front flower bed on top of the slope....
I
want to Thank all the hosts of the month long Blog Hop You're the Star
for choosing my blog post, How I Store Ornaments and Where Do I Put It All, as one of their featured posts for Family Feature Week!!!
Thanks again to all the hosts of the You're the Star Blog Hop!!
I
want to Thank Angie, over at God's Growing Garden, for choosing my Blog
post, Major Back Yard Project, as one of her featured posts from last
week's Tuesdays with a Twist Link Party!!
Thanks again, Angie!!!
And I also want to Thank Jennifer , over at Studio 27- by Jennifer Adams, for choosing my blog post, A Major Back Yard Project, as one of her features from last week's Wednesdays in the Studio Link Party!!
Thanks so much, Jennifer!!
Please stop and link up to these wonderful parties!!!
And now for a few Personal Notes...
For the New Year, I am trying something different with my 3 times weekly posts....
On THURSDAYS,
I will feature what I cooked and ate during the week, showcasing local
cuisine and a few recipes for things that I actually made...
I decided that on SATURDAYS, I will showcase What I Have Been Up To in the past week, sharing events and places I went to, if any....
On MONDAYS, I will be featuring What I Have Bought or Been Gifted Recently, if anything...
Well, today is THURSDAY so what have I been eating....
My son Joey treats us to Take Home dinner on Fridays and last Friday, we got hoagies from a local place, Serpico's....
Joey got a cheese steak hoagie, chicken fingers and fries....
And I got a chicken cheese steak hoagie....
Always delicious!!!!
On Tuesday, I went out to lunch at another local place, called Leggio's, with a few members of the Senior Social Club that I belong to......
I ordered a chicken BLT wrap, minus the T, with french fries......All for only $9.50!
I could not finish it so I brought what I could not finish home and I also ordered a baked ziti dinner with a salad and garlic knots to split with my son Joey for dinner....
It definitely was enough to split for dinner.....
It was really very good....
Today, I will be continuing to share my landscaping projects for this Spring....
I have not been able to mulch either my front yard or back yard for 2 years since my husband Joe passed away....
But this year, I figured out that if I ordered rubber mulch from both Sam's Club and Home Depot with their FREE delivery, I could do the projects myself....
The Winter took a toll on my yard along with the fact that I was not able to clean it up in the Fall because I had fallen at the end of September....
The slope in front of my house really was looking pretty bad as the dead perennials were never cut back...
This was taken looking down the slope....
This is how bad it looked.....
It looks like there is tumbleweeds on the slope!!
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I jerry rigged a rake so I could reach up to the top of the slope....
I used duct tape to attach the rake to another tool to make it long enough....
I cleaned up all the dried leaves, cut back the perennials and weeds and sprayed the weeds with Ground Clear, which supposedly kills the weeds down to the roots....
I broke my loper, which I have had for over 40 years, using it to reach some of the perennials to cut the dead growth off of them....
I ordered a new one from Home Depot, again delivery was FREE!
I ordered 10 bags of rubber mulch from Home Depot, along with the white rock that I used in the flower bed under the Living Room window for the trough for the gutter.......
I originally got a quote from a landscaper to do all of this on the slope and the flower beds under the Living Room window and the top of the slope, which I shared in previous posts....
$638!!!!
Well, needless to say, I decided to do the work myself...
I decided to invest in rubber mulch with the hope of not having to replace the bark mulch every year....
Yes,
it cost me about 4 times what bark mulch would cost but it does not
disintegrate so I hope to get several years out of my investment....
And for some odd reason, delivery was free with the rubber mulch and not free, a $35 delivery charge, for the bark mulch..
The slope is pretty much planted with ground phlox, which is starting to bloom, ground sedum ,columbine and bonfire spurge which reseeded from a neighbor's yard..
I managed to get most of the dead growth cut back....
I threw the mulch down from the top of the slope and then raked it in place from the top and from the bottom.....
I did manage to carry 2 bags ( the Home Depot bags were only 22 pounds) down the steps to put around the retaining wall.....
Then I applied a heavy coating of Preen on the entire slope....
The Preen is good for 3 months so I will be putting another coat down in the beginning of July....
The phlox are just starting to bloom...
It did rain pretty hard the other night and I noticed a few places where I could use a bit more mulch....
So I ordered 2 more bags from Sam's Club as they are bigger than the ones from Home Depot....
I will be putting it down later on today....
As the perennials, especially the hostas and lamb's ear, grow, they will fill up some of the open spaces..
This is the area where I think I can put more mulch down....
I had to apply a lot of the Ground Clear here to kill a large area of weeds....
I will share updates on how things are growing on the slope and when my azaleas start to bloom on the top.....
I think I did a pretty good job....
So let me break down what it all cost me...
Now bare in mind the quote by the landscaper only included the front yard, not the back yard, and the mulch he was going to use was the bark mulch, not the rubber mulch...
This is what I bought...
All the rubber mulch for BOTH the front and back yards
The tips for the delivery persons who carried those bags up 13 steps for me
A 16 lb. container of Preen, which I used up
A container with a wand of Ground Clear Weed Killer
A bag of white rock
Total cost for BOTH the front and back yard......
$390!!
A little over half of the quote by the landscaper...
I now hope my investment in the rubber mulch will pay off and I will only have to freshen up the mulch every year rather than replacing it all every year....
I guess we will see....
I am happy with how it all looks and I am glad that I did do it myself.......
You know what they say....
I hope you will stop by to visit again on SATURDAY when I will be sharing my front porch, decorated for Summer.....
Stay safe, healthy and most of all, HAPPY!!
And try to find JOY in every single day! 
Thanks to those who took the time out of their busy day to spend a little bit of time with me!!
If you do not have a blog, PLEASE give me some way to reply to your comment, maybe by including your email in your comment. If I can not find a way to reach you, I will reply on the post where you commented so please check back......
I am linking up to these parties:
THURSDAY
Please take some time to visit these terrific hosts and all those joining in on the fun!
