Instant Gratification

The trouble with seeds is you have to sit around and wait for them to grow. And we have waited long enough! So we took the easy way out for perhaps the first time since starting our landscaping project and purchased the bigger, better version: SOD. It just so happened that the day it was delivered (and you have to install it immediately) happened to be the only day I have lived here where it was nearly 100 degrees. It was a miserable 6 hours spent on hands and knees. But that is an ancient forgotten memory every time I gaze upon our bee-you-tee-ful yard. What a difference a day makes!

We figured, why stop there? So we went hog wild at the nursery and bought a bunch of flowers, ornamental grasses (my favorite), bushes, and trees to install in the flower bed. I thought we would wait til next spring, but the ants arrived in the pants early. It happens. Our very nice neighbor George even brought us a 'yard warming' plant to put it the garden. It is the big broad- leafed tropical-looking one in the back. I love it! And just FYI, we don't tell Lowrider to pose when we're taking pictures. He is simply a camera hog.

We still had a few sections of bare dirt where we didn't put grass, like along the driveway and under the evergreen bushes in the front, so I picked out some rock (appropriately called "ginger rock"--most of you know why that's funny) to fill in the space. We used leftover flagstones to build a path up to the gate and behind the house.

The almost final touches have included some solar lights, a flowering plum tree, some big old flower pots, tiki torches, a patio heater, and a wireless speaker. To celebrate the very near completion of our yard, we held an inaugural grill christening, where Derek used his monstrosity of a grill for the very first time. We made burgers, drank Octoberfest, and tried out some homemade baked beans. YUM!