Landscaping

Wow, it has been a whole month since I last updated this page. A lot has been happening since my last post. The big project for me now has been landscaping my Mom's front yard. Before I started on it, it consisted of a 20 ft. tall pine tree, dead grass, and a hedge along the front of the house. The pine tree I actually planted maybe 10 years ago; it was a small christmas tree of ours one year.

The first thing I did was take out the hedge with loppers and then uprooted its many trunks with a cutter mattock and pick mattock. The cutter mattock was indispensible. This was probably the hardest part of the whole job. I then did a general cleanup of the site, removing the brick planter around the pine, chopping up the hedge trunks, etc.

The next phase consisted of design. Coming up with a good design for the front yard that will meet the needs of the client (my mom) and the needs of the local ecosystem. So what I came up with is a landscape that is low maintenance, that uses native and drought tolerant plants, will need very little irrigation, and the irrigation it does need will be suplied by an easy to use drip system, and that the plants will provide forage for birds and butterflies. It will also be aesthetically pleasing, as this is important to my Mom.

So I came up with a list of possible plants and their growth habits and needs, narrowed it down to what would work for the space, and did a layout of the planting plan, along with a dry streambed and mulched areas. I bought most of the plants at the Cuyamaca Water Conservation Garden Nursery.

Currently I am working on the irrigation system. Luckily, we already have a sprinkler system in place, and I've discovered that the existing PVC pipes will serve all the drip irrigation needs. All I have to do is add in a pressure regulator and hook into the existing system. That makes it much easier.

Now that I have the irrigation system figured out, today I will start on the earthworks: digging the dry streambed and using that earth to build a mound around the pine tree. Wish me luck!