I’m way behind on posting the variety of things we’ve done around the yard but as we are coming up on the end of the hardscaping, here are a few pictures.

First thing we did was the sideyard. This goes from the front courtyard to the backyard. When we bought the house a year and a half ago it looked like this.  When we moved in – a clean sideyard, standing in the backyard looking toward the courtyard.

After the cement was removed.

It is now planted with redtwig dogwoods and yerba buena. I’ve still got to get in there and replace the decomposed granite in-between the stones that I can’t stand to look at anymore. I’ll put in some soil and a lot more yerba buena. The dogwoods should grow up and over each other and give a nice archway. Once I have shade I can fill it in with more shade plants.
The house before we did anything. Okay, we did remove the fountain that you can see to the side of the garage. It had cherubs. Not quite our style.

A closer look at the front with the old fence and the Mayten tree that kept dropping giant branches in each storm. Note the large quantities of stone/concrete/non-peremable surfaces.

After the new paver driveway and paver courtyard.

Minus the Mayten tree and with a new fence. I LOVE the gate. Next up here is to finish digging the creek which will capture the water from the downspouts which has been piped out to it. Plus rearrange the mound so it looks natural and not like a burial mound. Not as easy as it sounds.

A corner of the backyard. More aggregate, a path that goes nowhere. Thirsty grass. Boring. Plants that have no wildlife value.

The sliding doors are to my office.

The path is gone. The grass was the next to go.

This weekend my husband finished laying the stone patio. Now I have to plant in-between everything.

Whew! Just looking at all this pictures again has me exhausted! Next weekend it’s shopping for boulders! Plus there’s a little matter of a light that comes up in the yard that we can’t figure out how to turn on. No switches in the house work it. No timer in the garage. No idea. And we’re not handy enough to figure one out on our own. Time to go looking for an electrician.