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.
This is one of many pallida Iris beds that I have. Their smell is awesome and fills the air with a sweet tropical cloud of perfume. It reminds me when I was in Jamaica, these strong sweet tropical smells intoxicate all your senses.
Close-up of Pallida Iris. I think it's a princess Beatrix, but am not sure.
Here we have a Red Yucca bloom emerging. Actually I had to separate the Red Yucca, that I got last year. It grew so dense that I could get an other 7 plants out of it by dividing the root ball. Most of them are now getting blooms.
In this shady corner right beside the steps I have planted some Albo marginata Hostas. They also made 10 new plants from one that I got last year.
This is my Blue Ravine Clematis just starting to grow and bloom. I have 2 plants beside an arch and hope they will climb up very soon. They both are still very small and just getting shoots.
My pink butterfly flower, aslcepias incarnata is emerging from the ground also. I planted them last year from seed. They die back in the winter and grow stronger each year. In the back ground you can see one of my 2 syringa vulgaris, french lilac , they have bloomed last year the first time, but I probably cut them back too much. So far no buds yet :(
Here is one of the 2 pineapple plants that I grew last year from the end of a pineapple that I bought in the grocery store for eating. I just laid the cut-off ends on the ground and they developed roots. Got them potted up after a few weeks and kept them indoors during the winter. They both grew to this spectacular size in the winter months. Yesterday was the first day, I brought them out, because they are tropicals and cannot tolerate cool temperatures. I had to repot them in bigger pots, so strong was the root system. Isn't it amazing that this bautiful plant grew from just a pineapple piece that most people throw in the garbage, when they eat pineapples?
