What a Difference a Year Can Make

Today I'm emotional. No, I'm not PMS'ing. I was looking through old pictures of my yard, and came across a bunch from when I started my front yard garden- a year ago. I didn't even realize that it has officially been a year since I've started this project, and all of a sudden I'm proud (ecstatic!) of what I've accomplished in such a short period of time. Sure, if I was rich I could lay down some major coin and have someone else do it all for me in a weekend- but I wouldn't be as attached to it as I am now, because I did it myself.

May 19th, 2009 we started with having a bunch of old trees removed. Before you bash me for having trees removed, you have to understand they were 60 year old Modesto Ash trees, heavily infested with mistle toe. Modesto Ash have a lifespan of 50 years, their time was over.

This was all of the lawn I used to have. Now, keep in mind, this is only my side yard. For those of you who are lawn lovers, I still have plenty! But this entire section is now gone. And I don't miss it.Last fall we started with having the fence built, and the 10 feet on the outside of the fence had its lawn removed. Thanks to neighborhood CCR's, this is where I had to put my fence, and this is as tall as my fence could be. Last fall I put in a bunch of plants out here, along with six citrus trees. This picture was taken December 7th, 2009, after we got snow. In Sacramento. Yes, I know my Christmas light/sheet covered citrus trees are ugly to look at from the road, but they MADE IT. They are all still alive! It's worth it to me to have a few neighbors turn their noses up at me in order to save these trees. Not many of the other plants I planted in this section made it.
Here we're at March 21st, 2010. You might recognize this picture from my Ugly Garden post. This is still much more prettier than the lawn I had before. This is what we jokingly referred to as Xeriscaping. It has changed quite a bit over the past two months.

It's now May 23rd, 2010. No more lawn, no more plain dirt. Our garden is started. It has a long ways to go before it is the picture that I have in my head, but gosh darn it I am so proud of it! This used to be several thousand square feet of lawn that we never walked on....but now....

now we have Tomato Alley.... where you will find several varieties of tomatoes that should last us through the summer- such as Great White, Black Krim, Mr. Stripey, Black Cherry, and Japanese Black Trifele. The tomatoes are mixed in with various peppers and herbs- like sage, cilantro, tons of basil (can you ever have too much basil?), cumin, and black sesame.
And on the street side the citrus are doing awesome. Here we have Chandler pummelo, Yosemite Gold mandarin, Owari Satsuma mandarin, Red Rio grapefruit, Midknight Valencia orange, and a Bearss lime. Plant-wise we'll have year round color- starting with the citrus in the winter, followed by the poppies, daffodils, lavender, and irises in the spring, with a variety of coneflowers, gaillardia, achillea, sedum, and salvia's taking us from summer to fall.

The biggest reward would be that we're actually enjoying the space now. We never even walked over to this side of the yard before, we just kind of ignored it. Now, we come out here every evening. I think we'll enjoy it more once we install french doors on this side of the house (now we have to walk around the house to get here), and I think it will look much nicer once we install the patio and walkways (I mulched them as a temporary measure). Arbors over the gates covered in climbing roses will help add some vertical height, as will the Garden Prince almond tree, the Fuji apple, and the two pomegranate trees that are also planted in here. But, if I finished all of that now, what would I have to work on in 2011?