Over the past few years, the landscaping around my townhouse–which was not much to speak of in the first place–deteriorated pretty badly. A coooold winter followed by a blazingly hot summer killed off the palm trees. The grass in the back became nothing but weeds. Bushes died or got really leggy.

In fact, I think the builder really just found plants on sale and put them in with no particular plan, so most of the landscape wasn’t much of a loss. The palms were nice, but out of place. The only thing I really like is the magnolias, which thankfully, survived nicely. Most of the other stuff that survived was pretty ugly.

So after dithering about whether to spend the money to take on this project, I finally decided to do it. This involved working out a plan with the landscape company, taking out a lot of stuff, putting in a sprinkler system (yay!), then planting according to the plan.

The work has taken almost a couple of months, considering wait time to get the sprinkler and landscape workers here. And although it’s not quite done, I wanted to post some pictures to show how far its come.

I decided to show before, during, and after for each section, rather than all the befores and then afters. I think this will give you a better picture of just what’s happened.

The very last picture, by the way, shows a load of stone in my SUV (kept just for duties like these!). I decided to purchase the stone (Aztec 3/4″) myself since there’s a stoneyard near where I get my hair cut. I just stop by there after my appointment, pick up a load of stone, and bring it home. What’s filled in so far is three carloads, with more to come.

What remains to be done is a raised flowerbed in the back and the flagstone walks in front. I’ll post the remaining pictures when that’s done. Until then, whew!

Enjoy.