From dead grass to blooming bushes

We should have recognized the signs of grubs in the side lawn. We had them often enough in Texas. Note the grass section to the right of the driveway and the cement truck. It is very dead looking on the upper half.
By the time we realized it, the entire section of the grass was all dead and yellow. So last Saturday morning Steve removed the dead grass and hauled it to the back yard to be worked into the planting areas.

This morning he began early by removing the good soil and wheel borrowing it to the back yard to place in areas where we had rocks and no soil. You can't see it, but yesterday morning I installed ten stepping blocks from the driveway to the back gate. They are a terra cotta color and blend in with the rocks. They cost $10 and my cheap labor.



Lance and Steve dug out the five sprinkler heads, put on new joints and couplers and installed soaker hoses from the heads. Now all I have to do is install the bubblers and heads and we have a drip system for our new plants. The three of us planted a gardenia (right front), Bells of Fire (left front), Hummingbird bush (right middle), Arabian Jasmine (upper left), and Baja Fairy Duster bush (upper right). They will all bloom at different times of the year. Easy maintenance !


Picture the rest of the picture: hoses buried, black plastic laid down, river rocks in the gully and light pebbles and rocks around the rest of the area. We will also plant two Lantana bushes to do ground cover and a series of spineless cactus to fill in close to the street. A desert landscape with little watering needed.




Who says we don't have a pool?

Tuesday morning heavy rain (for this area) dropped 1.01 inches in our neighborhood. The water pooled on the putting green.





The water may have pooled but by night fall, it was all seeped into the soil. It makes for squishy walking!






And speaking of walking, I wanted a walkway from the back gate to the back patio and I had large sections of astro turf, long grass from the border, that I cut into large ovals. I used the last of the decomposed granite under each one, and nailed them down, filling in the red rock around them. Now I can walk barefoot outside!





I call this the "pathway to paradise" or the "putter walkway."








A final view of the finished back yard, showing the newly poured patio, the pergola patio cover, the putting green with the six flags marking the holes, the curbing and the newly racked red rocks.

Come putt a few holes with us!



Counsel: when hammering nails into the soil, try and not hit rocks and boulders!