Neighbors I’ve never met before are starting to talk to me.
“Stunning!” one man said to my husband and I last week as he came down the street to get his mail.
“It’s really beautiful!” said another man.
A woman stopped her car in the middle of the road, rolled down her window, and yelled out that she thinks it’s beautiful.
They are full of compliments . . . and we’re not even done yet!
With the concrete now poured, they’re starting to get a better idea of what we’re planning.
I still think they’re going to be pretty surprised at how it looks once everything starts growing in.
Even after it looks “done” it won’t be done. Of course, a garden is never really done. It’s living and growing, ever changing.
The climbing roses will cover the house walls, and that won’t be obvious at all for a few years.
The trees will grow bigger, the hedges will fill in, and the bushes will grow larger, and be rounded.
The show that really won’t be obvious, however, is the flowers that will be there by next spring.
Some are just a few months away. I’m sowing seeds after we put everything in. Then we wait for the thousands of flowers that will come.
My plan is for a year-round show of flowers. I have flowers planned for every season. All of them will be white.
Since my last update, we have:
Removed the first pile huge of dirt from the driveway to our neighbor’s backyard, using the borrowed backhoe. He wanted it and we didn’t have to rent a dumpster, so that was a positive for us.
Took the load of concrete, sod, the tree root, and other “junk” from the yard to the dump, thanks to a friend who let us load up his very old dump truck to take a load to the dump.
I purchased and planted 3 dwarf Meyer lemon trees that will be grown as a hedge in the upper planter. They were on sale and I used a $20 off coupon as well. Right now they are being watered by hand.
We dug and installed pipes for the water that will eventually be connected to our drip lines.
We have dug and compressed dirt in the front to have it ready to set forms for concrete.
The forms were set.
Concrete was poured and stamped.
They returned to cut lines in the concrete.
We dug out the old dirt around the forms, in preparation for new dirt. We got rid of yet another pile of dirt after that (the photo above is the pile of dirt after we dug out again right around the poured forms.) This pile was much smaller than the first one.
We brought new dirt in, worked on the valves some more, and attached black flexible piping to the PVC piping.
We returned the backhoe!
I bought and painted the urn that will go in the center circle. I have also chosen what plants will go in it (I had not previously decided which plants I would be using in it when I designed my initial plan. I now have a plan for summer plants and one for winter/spring plants).
Next up:
I need to plant the potted plants that are going in.
I will be attaching drip lines to the black flex hose, and pinning them down the right places with metal stakes.
My husband will work to concrete the column into the center circle, and attach the urn to the column. He also will be running water up through the center of the column and into the urn. Then we will fill in the center section with good dirt.
He will be finishing the valves and installing the valve boxes. We will then finish putting in dirt around the valve boxes, and then all of the dirt will be in.
I will be planting seeds after the drip lines are in.
Hopefully, all of those things can be done this week!
There are still some more things to do, but getting the above things done this week are my goals (My husband may or may not plan to tackle the column this week). It should be getting hotter again towards the end of the week (possibly 120º by Friday), so I really want to get it done before then. It’s going to be some hot work this week!
Previous posts about our front garden plans:
Front Garden Update (The Beginning Stages)
Dreaming on Paper (Our Plans)
Sounds like your neighbors are inspired by you! It’s going to look lovely.
OH. MY. GOODNESS! Brandy, it is beautiful, even without the plants. It will be drop-dead gorgeous when they are all in!
Sounds like your neighbors are inspired by you! It’s going to look lovely.
I do not generally post unknown comments, but I wanted to answer this comment. (Please add a name to your account for future comments to be posted). The cinder block wall that is there was already there; it is my neighbor’s back wall. It is against the HOA rules to stucco the cinder block walls; in fact, when I went to the HOA meeting to get my plan approved, they made a big fuss about 3 people who had stuccoed their walls, and how they are going to make them remove the stucco.The wall has been visible for the last 10 years since these homes were built. When my lemon trees grow up, they will be pruned as a hedge in front of that wall, so it will no longer be visible, for the most part. I just have to wait for them to grow that big.
Love it! Enjoying your updates. It’s giving me some ideas.Can you suggest resources for planning a drip system?
SO beautiful! I can’t wait to see the finished product all planted and blooming.KK
Wow….it is going to be beautiful. 120…..I feel real wimpy for complaining about todays 33 degrees celsius even if it feels like 40 with the humidity. 120…….crazy!!!!
It’s exciting to see it come together. I love doing projects at home…
I don’t think I saw a stuccoed wall while I lived in Vegas–they were all block. I didn’t know that HOAs even had rules about the walls!It looks lovely, Brandy! So inspiring. It has given me some ideas about what I could do with the sunniest “garden” area of our yard.
Brandy, I am inspired by your industriousness and creativity. You go, sister!
So exciting, and I love how the neighbors are stopping to talk to you. We built a picket fence years ago and I couldn’t believe all the talk!
can’t wait to see the finished product… and ditto to Gayle above… start a home improvement project and it turns into a block party!
Looks expensive. You’re amazing.
I LOVE it Brandy, absolutely LOVE it. What are the roses that you picked out? I recently put in a pergola that gets full sun. We live in PA. Do you have any suggestions as to what you would put growing up it? One thought was a climbing iceberg rose, climbing oakleaf hydrangea, clematis. Shelby
Your local nursery is a great place to ask about installing a drip system. I will be sharing more details about that in time.
I am planting two climbing iceberg roses and 8 regular iceberg roses. I chose them because they are floribundas, and I wanted repeat blooming throughout the year.I have never heard of a climbing oakleaf hydrangea. That sounds pretty. I didn’t know there were climbing hydrangeas.Clematis are beautiful. I have never seen them here and I don’t know how well they would do here, but where you are, they would be beautiful, and constant flowers. I would probably opt for the clematis, myself, because I have wanted one for a long time, but also because they flower for such a long time.
Brandy…will all these flowers require a tremendous amount of watering? Do you have water restrictions there? Just curious.
We have water tiering on our bill and rules about when we can water. Everything will be watered by drip emitters. Water restrictions are for time of day and nothing may touch the street. There are watering days that are allowed on certain seasons.The drip gets water just to where I need it, so that cuts down on a lot of water usage.There will also be food out there as well: 5 fruit trees, herbs, and vegetables, and hopefully a fruiting vine.
Shelby–It gets full sun. Why not plant a grape vine of either side of it?
Very nice! I love this! Thanks for sharing.
Thank you for sharing your progress–it’s really fun to see things evolving. It seems like so much work, but looks great already. I’m a bit jealous that you can grow citrus where you are–they wouldn’t survive the winters in my zone 5 climate. I’m amazed and inspired by what you are able to grow where you live.
Breathtaking!
Brandy- That looks wonderful! I can’t believe that you are able to work in the heat…My husband and I were in Vegas at the beginning of June and melting in the 114 degree heat. I was so surprised at how much landscaping and what can grow in Vegas. I guess with proper watering anything is possible. It made me think I could grow anything, we live in the high desert. Though our winters are hard our ground is sandy and rocky. The days are hot and the nights are cool.Your front yard is going to be perfect!
Brandy, I am amazed at how quickly you have brought this project from conception to fruition. Great job, I hope to be able to see it when I’m in Vegas this summer.
Yes to what Sakura said…this all came together so quickly. It looks easy but I know you are all putting major effort into this reconstruction. It will be beautiful.