Landscaping Woes

The Project

The Side Yard

The Success, so far.

The Challenge

I have a cold today. I thought I'd take some cold meds and carry on, since, if I pull the covers over my head and stay in bed it will take me a month to deal with aftermath when I finally do get up. I am up and moving, but it is slow and sort of dream like. I did finally get the laundry put away from yesterday, and now I need a rest. So I thought I'd blog about my landscaping dilemma.

When we bought our new house in town, my husband blissfully bragged to all of his friends that he would not have any work to do on the house. We had been fixing up houses for the last twelve years or so. I pointed out that it had no yard. Like, the topsoil was gone, it is built on this ridiculously steep slope, there wasn't even the cursory twig in the front yard. He smiled and said "sod". Yeah. The upside of our lot is that it has city property right behind it. There are a few trees up there and around the hill is a big play field that we can commandeer pretty much whenever we want. And we don't have to water or mow it.


I decided that the front yard would be my space. I planted native plants that would not need water, and will eventually be low maintenance. It is working pretty well. We put sod down on the flat parts so the kids could play without having to be hosed off when they were done.

My challenges are money, of course, it has to be kid friendly, and it has this crazy slope. We opted not to put in a sprinkler system yet, we spent that money on N, a much better investment. So drought tolerant is also a must. The other somewhat significant factor is that we live in a really nice neighborhood. Everybody has beautiful lawns, and then there is us. I do have to love my neighbor in all of this.


Someone asked me what my ultimate landscaping would look like. I said "AstroTurf with a few big climbing rocks." That would be great, but I'm not sure you can do AstroTurf on a hill. We also had a very interesting conversation with some folks who had had a man from Africa stay with them. He was appalled at the way we all waste our land. We have all of this land, aka city lot, and we plant useless things like grass and shrubs. He has a point. I do have enough farmer genes in me to find that sort of unsettling myself. I did plant some strawberries along the sidewalk in the front of the house. I know that if they ever have a chance to get ripe, they will be immediately plucked by eager fingers and promptly popped in the hopper. I'm not expecting to make jam from the fruit of my labor, but it will be appreciated just the same. I'm hoping to plant raspberries along the fence, with the same thought in mind. They also make nice hedges. I am plotting a terrace of some kind in the back. You will notice in the pictures that the kids have been helping me to implement my dream. Maybe a garden on the terrace would be nice. BK has always wanted a garden.

Kid friendly means something different to me than to my kids. I had hoped to put in a waterfall, they are hoping for a water slide. Which, I am sure, is what the waterfall would turn into. They love the slope, and use their plastic sleds to slide down it in all seasons. My Dad brought down some drought tolerant grass seed. He asked if I had planted it yet. I told him I hadn't because our rainy season hasn't really started. Then it occurred to me that I will have to keep the kids off the grass. Hmmm, that could be an issue. Maybe I will plant the grass outside the fence for now. I'm definitely in the planning phase of this process. I think I will stay in that phase until I retire, which is when I will have the time and money to implement the plan. Until then the kids can try their hands at a little landscape architecture.