May
05
2013

Front Yard Transformation

(Add / View Comments) (0)Sunday, May 5, 2013 - 12:56:03 pm
(Posted Under: Landscaping, This Desert Life This Desert Life)
About a month an a half later, the front garden is done. A lot of blood, sweat and tears went into it. Well, just sweat really. But lots and lots of it. [wink]

This is what the front looked like when we brought the place (kudos to MLS for the grainy photo).

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Hate is a strong word. But the right one to be used in how we felt about the front when we brought the house. The photo actually makes it look somewhat better than it was. And the impracticality of it was even worse than the aesthetics. Trying to walk on those river rock (the few times we had to) was a St. Lukes emergence room trip just waiting to happen. And those poor excuses for palo verde trees were a huge problem so close to the side walk, especially with their sharp branches.

And y'know, I didn't move half way around the world to have a shitty cactii-less front yard. When in Rome, and all that. Apparently this landscape has been this way for 20+ years, and it wasn't going to stay that way with us living here. But that was going to be a longer term home improvement project.

But thanks to our sewer line dramas at the start of this year (thank you to the juniper tree pictured above) it become a much shorter term home improvement project. Although it didn't seem possible [wink], the front looked even worse after that expensive nightmare. It looked a lot like this actually...

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So, hands were forced. Turning the front into proper desert landscape was going to happen years earlier than it otherwise would have. Come March, it was time to get it happening, before the god awful Arizona summer hit. Lest our neighbors have to look at this mess until November.

By far, the worst part of the job was moving that god forsaken river rock. Much of which was buried after the sewer line work, so not only did it have to be moved, but also dug up. Dealing with the river rock was certainly the most time consuming part of the whole thing, with the first 2 weeks of work being pretty much dedicated to that. This is how things progressed (in pictures) over the next month.

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We were pretty chuffed with things last weekend, as shown in the second last photo. All was left was to do was the top cover. It was pretty easy to decide on the cobblestone rock (as visible on the right side) over the canyon red. We had that delivered on Friday and got that in on Friday night. The result looks more like it snowed in the desert. Or that there was a Keith Richards cocaine party gone horribly wrong in our front yard.

The color variation between the bag we sampled with, and what was delivered in bulk is fairly great. I'd be lying if I were to say we're not disappointed by that. With the blazing Arizona sun, you really need to be wearing shades if you walk past our house. Not what we were going for at all. Maybe we can dye the stuff or something in the future. I don't know.

But I do know this - you can stick a fork in me Jerry, because for now, I'm done! Minus the rock color snaffu, it's we love it.
Now Playing: Foo Fighters - Best Of You

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