Here is what the pathetic front yard looked like after spending more money than I care to admit having it put in. Best we can figure, it wasn't properly prepared. We should have realized when the landscaper suggested we water it 90 minutes twice a day ... honestly, anything would grow with 3 hours of water. What a ridiculous waste of natural resources.
So we (read I) came up with a plan for the front space becoming more hospitable to our winged cohabitants, namely the bees / butterflies / hummingbirds. We are very concerned about the bees. Every February or March we see truckloads of beehives carted in to pollinate the almond trees. They can’t precisely predict when the trees will bloom, so the bees come in and wait sometimes a week or more for food. The hungry bees are all over our place – you hear a loud drone of buzzing in our Italian Cypress trees from the porch and they hover over wild grasses looking for flowers. They're starving.
Bees have it hard. We percolated on this a while and an idea hatched to contour the ground with topsoil, add natural elements like rock and tanbark and flagstone walkways and plant a variety of perennial flowering shrubs they love, including ground cover, wildflowers and herbs. Toss out a welcome mat for them, but do it in as natural a way as possible to tie in to the surrounding fields.
I'm a constantly surprised Idea Person so the actual follow through is always ALWAYS a shocker -- whoa! this is a lot of work! this is taking way more time than I expected! look at the cost! I'm the LETSDOIT gal.
I conducted some official research (meaning I looked at pictures online) and came up with a 'sort of' plan. We will reuse the irrigation system. It needs to look purposefully random, but it is hard to explain that to our landscaper, a 76 Basque immigrant who lives in the concrete world of absolutes and has limited English. Nevertheless his crew moved around the mountain of topsoil and will be moving around two more mountains of rock, all the heavy stuff we can't do. Then we're on our own to achieve the goal.
I am nervous the Hubs won't like it, and I am nervous it will need a lot of tending, but still jumped in with both feet. Juan scraped off the grass and rototilled it. They wheel barrowed 20 yards of topsoil around, and there's 80 tons of rock to go.
Hey it's only a 5,000 sq ft space. Easy peasy. Pity the Hubs, do.
So we (read I) came up with a plan for the front space becoming more hospitable to our winged cohabitants, namely the bees / butterflies / hummingbirds. We are very concerned about the bees. Every February or March we see truckloads of beehives carted in to pollinate the almond trees. They can’t precisely predict when the trees will bloom, so the bees come in and wait sometimes a week or more for food. The hungry bees are all over our place – you hear a loud drone of buzzing in our Italian Cypress trees from the porch and they hover over wild grasses looking for flowers. They're starving. Bees have it hard. We percolated on this a while and an idea hatched to contour the ground with topsoil, add natural elements like rock and tanbark and flagstone walkways and plant a variety of perennial flowering shrubs they love, including ground cover, wildflowers and herbs. Toss out a welcome mat for them, but do it in as natural a way as possible to tie in to the surrounding fields. I'm a constantly surprised Idea Person so the actual follow through is always ALWAYS a shocker -- whoa! this is a lot of work! this is taking way more time than I expected! look at the cost! I'm the LETSDOIT gal. I conducted some official research (meaning I looked at pictures online) and came up with a 'sort of' plan. We will reuse the irrigation system. It needs to look purposefully random, but it is hard to explain that to our landscaper, a 76 Basque immigrant who lives in the concrete world of absolutes and has limited English. Nevertheless his crew moved around the mountain of topsoil and will be moving around two more mountains of rock, all the heavy stuff we can't do. Then we're on our own to achieve the goal. I am nervous the Hubs won't like it, and I am nervous it will need a lot of tending, but still jumped in with both feet. Juan scraped off the grass and rototilled it. They wheel barrowed 20 yards of topsoil around, and there's 80 tons of rock to go. Hey it's only a 5,000 sq ft space. Easy peasy. Pity the Hubs, do.
