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The front of the house was a mixture of dead stuff in the yard itself, a wasteland of seasonal weeds and bermuda grass, and uncontrolled growth next to the house. Bermuda grass is mostly brown, except in the winter, if the winter actually has a lot of rain, which we haven't had for some time, and spreads everywhere by both seeds and underground roots. It is nearly ineradicable. To balance the desert there were wildly over-grown things in the planter next to the house, including several volunteer trees and a creeping blight of bamboo. Something Had To Be Done, and it had to be done in a way that was fun. So I decided to apply my home renovation philosophy to landscaping.
Wherein I begin landscaping the front yard. I had already removed an extraneous tree plus an invasion of bamboo from the west end of the house, now I needed to do the same for the east end, and begin replanting and redesigning the landscape for the body of the yard.
I progress toward the end of the first part of the project. I've divided the yard into thirds, starting at the house and working my way toward the sidewalk.
The end of the year, and the end of planting for part one. Of course, I still haven't finished laying the walkway, because I got a new idea which I hadn't started on yet. But the plants are all in the ground or in their planters and pots, and I know what I want to do next.
The Terrible Frost of January 2007, which causes plants to die and me to get side-tracked, although I had at least gotten started on the revised walkway. A bit discouraged, I go back to work inside the house.
I soldier on, and so do the plants. We are both much further along with our recovery from the disaster by the end of February, and by March things are looking pretty good.
Springtime in La Verne: The first Spring since I started my yard art project. Some plans have worked wonderfully, some not so much. I'm very pleased with my walkway, the allysum has done splendidly, as have the violas. The bulbs have been a disappointment, many have not bloomed, the Washington orange looks rather sickly in terms of leaves (although it is blooming profusely), and one of the miniature lillies of the Nile did so poorly I replaced it. But over-all things look rather nice.
It has been a year since I got started, and here's where I am now. There is a flash animation of then and now at the bottom of the page, which requires the appropriate plugin, and is about 250KBs, so may take a moment to load.
Taking a look at where I am, and what I want to do next. Photoshop can help you decide what an idea would actually look like. Besides, it's fun.
Combining the topicality of boomers and their "60 is the New 50" with global warming, I took some spring-like photos at the end of February 2008.