We’ve been having some crazy glorious weather in Dallas lately – I am loving it!!  The spring-like temps got my hubby all inspired to freshen up our landscaping with new mulch.

I didn’t get a proper “before” photo so you could see how truly hideous our flower beds looked but just take my word for it – they were looking really beat.

We both hate working in the yard with a passion – and re-mulching every year just to have it look sad and faded after a few months is pretty depressing.  So this year we opted to bite the bullet and try out rubber mulch – it’s more expensive but it will supposedly last for up to 12 years without fading or decomposing!  If that’s the case then we will have recouped our investment after the first two years, saving ourselves money and lots of labor in the long run.  This is the brand of rubber mulch that we went with.

Have any of you tried rubber mulch?  What’s your take on it?  (And please ignore our straggly bushes.)

Once Jason finished spreading all the mulch our flower beds were looking pretty snazzy!!  I love the way dark brown mulch looks – it just does it for me in a way that reddish or light mulch doesn’t.  Anybody else?

And check out that contrast between the mulched and non-mulched areas – the mulch makes such a difference!!

Jason didn’t spread any mulch in the areas right by the sidewalk and front porch because . . . I promised I would plant some flowers.  What was I thinking?

We picked up 40 purple petunias from Home Depot and I got to planting.    First I had to fill up an entire garbage sack with all of the nasty weeds and dead flowers that I pulled out of the beds.  Good times for a chick that’s 31 weeks pregnant!  (And yes, that’s the same T-shirt from the nursery-painting extravaganza.  It now has pink paint on it which makes me feel somewhat sentimental – weird, right?)

Pulling out all of the dead stuff wound up turning over the soil pretty well so it was easy to plant those suckers once I’d laid them all out in their future homes.

You may have noticed that every tree within a 5 mile radius decided to shed its leaves about 3 seconds after Jason finished mulching – so please excuse all the leaves everywhere.

Anyway, after a few hours of work our flower beds were looking cute and colorful!

I’m ready for our little Japanese maple to get its leaves, and for the knockout roses to really start blooming.  Bring on the color!

I still have plans to add two planters to the front porch, but knowing me that will probably never happen.  :)  What about you – have you been fiddling around in your garden lately?