Landscaping job wraps up

Richard’s men are almost done with the big landscaping job at the downtown house. We’d hired his company, Dick’s Landscaping, to xeriscape both the front and back yards, huge plots of land compared to modern tract lots.

They’ve ripped out a decrepit walkway, built a front courtyard and new brick walkway, installed an automatic watering system (front and back), laid three brick patios, planted eight trees and a bunch of ornamental grasses and shrubs, laid weed fabric over the bermudagrass-infested ground, and spread 75 tons of quarter-minus crushed granite. And the place is looking a lot better!

Here’s a “before” view of the backyard:

And an after:

We’re looking at a lemon tree, a lime tree, a Texas ebony, deer grass, a Mexican bird of paradise. Both the Lisbon lemon and the Mexican lime will get to be good-sized trees. Texas ebony is slow-growing, but over time it develops into a very handsome xeric tree. Not much we can do about the overhead wires, which actually are over the alley, other than consider them quaint characteristics of a character-filled antique bungalow.

Work in progress in front:

And here’s the result:

The little tree is a multi-trunked desert willow, which grows to a medium height and bears lovely deep purple flowers for  many months during the late winter and spring. In a year or two, it should shade the front window and, with the mature carob tree just to its west, cool and shade the new courtyard.

More to come: We just had Richard’s crew do the heavy lifting for us. After the worst of the heat passes, M’hijito will plant more ornamentals and set various potted plants around the yard. And in back, we’ll lay flagstone stepping stones to build a pathway from the covered patio to the new sitting area in back.

The 1,450 bricks that came from the estate sale sufficed to build most of the three patios, and we still have a few left. Amazing buy!

Our project inspired the down-at-the-heels neighbor across the street to do a little keeping-up-with-the-jonesing: he snagged our workmen and hired them to lay a wide driveway in his front yard. Maybe some of the rolling stock will get moved off the lawn!