A Bench and Running Water

OK people (mainly our MN peeps) so here in Southern California we don't have what you would call "land" in which to plant a multitude of fruit and vegetable plants along with beautiful foliage and trees. We are making due though with what we like to call "our yard"....not large by any means (literally a few yards wide to be exact) and with what I'm convinced is acidic death soil that sucks the life out of anything that comes into contact with it. Having said that, you may now view what it looked like prior to us having done anything to it except set our Adirondack chair out in the hopes that one day we might actually want to hang out.

very sad I realize, and you should have seen the looks of disgust on our faces as we went out there on our first day back in California after our trip out to MN.....while "brother and sister in law #1", and "brother and sister in law #2" talked about (aka. rubbed in our faces) how much food they harvest on a daily basis and how magical it is to see so many species of bird in their yards, we are happy to see that our plants have lived to see another day. We did see a crow on our roof this morning, we think it's building a nest in our fireplace, and some sort of rat or possum is burrowing a hole underneath our fence, magical! We did put in a really cool bench (below) that my grandpa built, we are really happy with how it turned out.

Since we live in a desert, and I'm told we're in the middle of a drought (a friend of mine got an $80 ticket for watering his lawn on the wrong day last week), I figured we would plant drought resistant plants like succulents and brush grasses. Also, these are "very hard to kill" I'm told, which may or may not have figured into my decision making. You also might notice the river rock that was placed underneath the bench and around some of the plants and water feature. These are really pretty and much nicer than the pinkish concrete blocks that were in those spots previously.

Our new water feature was the brainchild of the man of the house, who was super motivated one morning and decided that we were going to finish this project in one day. It was hard work but I think it turned out really well. I did my river rock thing around it which is cute but also holds down and covers the plastic sheet that he had to put underneath. I also planted some more drought resistant plants and stacked some slate pieces to make the little waterfalls on each level.

That's all on the "yard" for now, we hope to plant some more in the near future. I'm thinking of some ivy to creep up the side of the house and cover up some of the white walls which practically blind you when the sun is out and shining (which is pretty much everyday).