Introduction-

I moved into my current home in July 1991. I removed the hedge across the front, watered the lawn to prepare for a reduced size. Cut down the cottonwood next to the home. I then measured out the lot and began to draw in the house and proposed landscaping, taking into account my needs, my available money, and my artistic look. I reduced the lawn in front to a ¼ of the original size with a brick border, and then added irrigation. I then added 1 valve for a drip system that would encompass the entire landscape.

I then began to plant - little by little over the next few months on my free time. I purchased and planted the sisso trees for shade, and acacia schaffneri, totem pole cactus, and a yucca glorissa as accents. With the mounding and arroyo with a small retention basin creating the contouring of the flat grassed area, it now looks more like a Xeriscaped garden. Finally came the boulders and decomposed granite to cover/mulch the soil and hold down dust, and also to naturalize the Xeriscape.

With the front almost complete I began the back yard. Initially I kept the lawn for a volleyball area. So I killed the extra grass and built a brick edge to define the area. Again I needed to adapt the irrigation. I replanted many of plants I saved from my previous house, in the shade of the pine tree, extended the drip from the front across the back and as far as the vegetable garden. Two years later tired of mowing I converted the front lawn to a wild flower/perennial bed and the back lawn to a sand volleyball area instead of grass.

During the winter of 96/97 I changed the sand volleyball area to a reduced size (20*20). For a vegetable garden, and raised the height of the brick edge, and brought two truckloads of mulch/peat/manure and soil amendments to fill it up. Changes the lawn sprays to shrub sprays around the edge and planted for the first time in Feb of 97. Like any garden it keeps evolving, new plants are tried and old ones changed.

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