Welcome to My Front Yard!

I would like to welcome you to a tour of my front yard. Before we begin the tour, let me give you a little history. Unfortunately I have no pictures of the yard from when we first moved in so you'll have to settle for "after" pictures. If only I'd known someone would invent blogging............

Entrance to the Front Yard

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When we first moved into this house 19 years ago, the yard was all grass. It’s a long narrow yard measuring 50' by 80'. As new homeowners, we had little money to fix up the yard so it stayed grass for about 5 years. It was so much grass to water that The Hubster and I decided to get automatic sprinklers installed. We got an estimate from one of those guys who throws a plastic baggie with his business flyer and a rock into your driveway. I think the guy was THRILLED that his marketing actually worked! Anyway, the estimate was $900 and we (in a moment of complete & utter folly) decided that “WE COULD DO THE WORK CHEAPER!” Famous last words.......

A View of the Front Porch

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So the following weekend we traipse over to Our Other Home (Home Depot) and went to the aisle that sells all the pipe, sprinkler heads, timers & valves that any one (idiot) would need for a project of this enormity. We wrestled an employee to the ground and I sat on him while Hubby asked the questions. He was very helpful (once we got him to the ground) and had answers for most of our queries. He even gave us a pamphlet to guide us in laying out our sprinkler system and figuring out what supplies we would require. We were ready to go home and measure out our plan!

The View From the Porch

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The next weekend we were up early and on our way back to Our Other Home. We were armed with our pamphlet, our sketches and our positive attitudes. Joyfully, we filled the cart with all the things we would need to begin our project. We were now officially in the Do It Yourself Zone.

We drove home and got ready to dig. We had this idea that we would dig a trench for the pipe & save the grass we took out of the trench. This way we could lay the pipe and then put the grass back into the hole so that we didn’t end up with unsightly areas with no grass. To do this, we took a shovel and carefully cut into the grass in a V pattern, placing the plug of dirt and grass next to the trench. Now I had no experience using a shovel. Some people have told me I can sure “shovel it on pretty thick” but I don’t think they meant dirt.

The Front of the House

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Anyway, let me explain the dynamics of digging with a shovel. Basically you jump up and land on the edge of the spade with one foot on EACH side of the wooden handle, thereby driving the sharp end of the spade onto the earth. Sound pretty easy, RIIIIIIGHT? Well THIS body is not built for jumping onto ANYTHING, much less a sharp pointed metal object with a big wooden stick protruding from it. I decided to put one foot on one side of the metal part and gently push the shovel into the dirt. Well this didn’t work because A) Our dirt is as HARD AS A ROCK, and B) by placing my foot in this position I caused the shovel handle to swing towards me and hit my in the eye. I did this several times and had a nice purple bruise around my eye before The Hubster decided I’d helped enough and banned me from ever touching a shovel again. I think he was afraid I'd tell everyone HE gave me the black eye. It was embarrassing to have to admit to people I'd hit myself in the head with a shovel.

Zipper & the Gargoyle

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So we laid the pipe, placed the sprinklers where we wanted them, installed valves & a timer and then put the grass back into the trench. We turned on the water and VOILA! It worked perfectly! It only cost us $200 for the supplies, plus four 10 hour back breaking days of work and a black eye (or two).

We stayed with grass for a few years and then Hubby got tired of mowing it. Now that it got watered regularly it seemed to grow faster so we hired Mr. Lee (have you ever noticed that all gardeners are named Mr. Lee?) to mow the grass.

Another few years passed & we got tired of paying someone to mow the grass so we paid Mr's Lee to remove all the grass and replace it with rock. I know, I know......after we went through all that trouble SAVING the grass while we installed the sprinklers. California was experiencing drought and we decided that rocks were better. However, we did plant several rose bushes roses interspersed throughout the rocks. We ran drip tube from the existing sprinkler heads to each of the rose bushes. We also added a picket fence to keep the rock in and the people out.

I love my yard because it's low maintenance and beautiful. Where I live, the roses will bloom several times in a season. The Hubster has no excuse to not bring me roses because he can go into the yard and cut some almost anytime!