Introduction

When I bought my house in September 2007, there was nothing but grass surrounding it. The first thing that crossed my mind after closing was how I could transform this lawn into my own personal garden oasis. I had thousands of ideas in my head, and soon after I moved in, I began to remove parts of the lawn along the house with my own hands, a shovel and a hand tiller. It was hard work, but eventually there were beds all around the house, which I bordered with flagstones that I bought. I planted ornamental grasses, Cannas, Palms, Banana trees, lilies and some succulents. After weeks of removing the grass, I figured, if I want to get the yard in a shape that I could enjoy, I would have to hire a company that removes the grass professionally. I also had 2 trees in the front yard, which I didn't like, since they took all the sun away and made my living room dark. There was also a huge fig tree right on the side of the house, and I had to remove that one also, because the roots grew already under the slab of the garage and I was afraid, they would crack the foundation. The company that I hired, installed me a privacy fence in the backyard and removed big portions of grass with a sod cutter around the fence and in the middle of the yard, along the driveway and on the right side of the driveway in the front yard.
Once, everything was removed, I hired an other company that bordered the beds with cement curbs. Looked really good and all I had to do now was to fill it up with top soil, sand, riverrocks and mulch. I ordered several truck loads full of soil, after I had laid down a weed barrier. On top of the soil I had a layer of sand, and riverrocks on the left side of the front yard, since that was the bed, where I wanted to get a desert-like appearance. Everything else was covered with topsoil and black mulch.

The front yard was the first that I worked on, because I wanted to look everything nice from the street. This is what my forntyard looked like in the first summer.

Banana Basjoo, Cannas and Lilies

Purple fountain grass, Cannas, and Japanese Morning Glory climbing on porch posts

Pampas grass in the middle of the lawn

Purple fountain grass and Hollyhock on the right