May 20, 2012

Home improvements


We moved into our current house in early 2007, and five years on, things are beginning to show signs of wear and in need of repairs.  There’s a whole lot of home improvement works in my list but the work has been delayed again and again.  Reason being we are planning to get the original interior decorator cum contractor who renovated our house to work on them, but he has been busy with other bigger projects so ours repeatedly got pushed back.

In any case, we started work on our small patch of lawn in the front yard with a garden landscaper.  We had previously planted Philippines grass which required a lot of maintenance.  The grass grew quite fast and therefore needed to be cut at least once in 1-2 months.  And due to different level of exposure to sunlight, the lawn had turned ugly with patches of yellow, as Philippines grass need sunlight to grow well.  We also had a giant-leaved yam plant which was growing too huge for the small garden and encroaching into the parking area.

So one fine day, the workers came and uprooted the grass and the yam plant.


We replaced the Philippine grass with the low maintenance pearl grass, which requires little cutting or watering.  The texture of the pearl grass is not as nice as the Philippines grass, but I’d trade this for the convenience and time saving.  In place of the yam plant, we planted a bonsai-like tree which will not grow sideways.


Next project for the front yard would be to get pavers to replace the interlocking paving stones at the car porch, which has weeds growing in between, to patterned tiles for easier maintenance.

5 comments:

Unknown said...

It looks good from the pictures... I planted Philippine grass in my garden and they are ok for many years, just need a little trimming which will expose the brown patches but after a while they will green back. My only complain is the sunny parts get thick thus causing the garden to be horizontally uneven. But weeding is rarely needed. I also have the bonsai plant like yours in a corner of my garden, apparently no maintenance only need water, no need talk to plant also. Haha. But oh now, after a few months, the leaves grow and thats when your skills at bonsai-ing come in. Mine is hardly rounded now, and after a few bad snip snaps, I think my bonsai is sulking. Honestly.

Kit said...

Hahaha...I like the "bonsai tree that won't grow sideways"!!! There's such a breed??? Very convenient.

Love your lawn...sigh...dreaming of owning a piece of landed property...sigh...

A Mom's Diary said...

Irene - But you need to have the Philippine grass trimmed regularly right, coz it grows so fast? We were told that pearl grass hardly needs trimming, so lets see. My bonsai tree is also in need of trimming now, so lets see how it turns out after we snip snip here and there :-)

Kit - haha, that's me for lack of vocabulary and knowledge of horticulture to describe the plant :-) If only I also won't grow sideways...wakakaka.

ZMM said...

Nice..

How does pearl grass look like?

I don't know what grass we have in our small patch.. but it's pretty low maintenance.

A Mom's Diary said...

Zara's Mama - pearl grass doesn't look as nice as Philippine grass. They are broader and rougher but what's important to us is the low maintenance.