Our Yard

This is a picture of our driveway from the road.  What I had hoped to catch was all the rocks that were left by the builder all along the sides of this driveway.  I have hated it from the beginning.  Since we have gotten a notice from the HOA, I thought I was going to have to hire someone to deal with all of this, but since talking with neighbors, we decided to tackle it ourselves, but make a commitment to do so.

So, the kids and I will start removing the rocks and dumping them to shore up the gravel drive to the shed.  It is not bad, but it will reinforce some thinner areas and make a little curve area for easier backing up.

Along the driveway on both sides, we are taking out some of the brush  - about 10 to 15ft on each side - leveling it out, laying sod and planting Natchez Crepe Myrtles to line the drive.  This all will take some time, but I think as long as we are actively working on it - the HOA will leave us alone.

This picture is from where the driveway starts to curve toward the house.  The left catches a tiny bit of the gravel drive to the shed and the right is another area that we are creating a gravel drive for parking and backing up.

The area between the house and shed currently has 3 Natchez Crepe Myrtles and a Lemon Tree.  It will be sodded, but we are working on the dry creek beds.  All LOT of water comes off the house, shed and front of the property, so we had to deal with that.  We did not want a rain fall to wash out the yard over and over, nor did we want standing water, so we made a rather long dry creek bed that will ultimately end up in a small pond, but right now, it is just going to the back of the property.

Here is a closer view of the dry creek beds.  Both come together in from of the fence.  Our plan is to line them with rocks.  After we get the driveway done, this is what we will focus on.  It will take time laying out the rocks because they have to be laid one by one pretty much.

Our flower beds have hibiscus, bottle brushes, mexican grass and one other kind I always forget the name of.  It is a light green bushy type.  Eventually, we will also put a fire pit and seating in this area - so some grass, but not too much.

This is the side of the driveway that is getting graveled as well.  They dumped the crushed concrete on Friday.  College Boy and my youngest got out there on Saturday and got one pile spread out.  It is rainy today, so the pile by the basketball goal is still there.  It looks so much better though - clean up the area tremendously!


Now that Theater is over, our weekends are back, so hopefully we can actually get some work done!