Back Yard: Phase One remodel

So, a few months ago, I posted our backyard plans and that they were scheduled to start phase one of our remodel the following week. I had several of you inquire about "after" photos.   So here are our before and afters!

The plans. Phase one is in color here. The rest is just tentative plans for later phases.

The landscapers spent the first two days just digging irrigation, then put in sod, 17 trees (date palm, queen palms and sissoo) and about 95 or so plants including Hawaiian Hibiscus, flowering green cloud sage, orange jubilee, lavender, bowering vine, iris, rosemary, ruellia, and lantana. We are two months post phase one and some of the flowers are starting to blossom.

 It was important to us to pick plants that were well suited for our summer heat and were drought tolerant so that we would not have to waste water unduly keeping any of our landscaping alive. Creative Environments, our landscapers, specialize in desert landscaping and helped us create a beautiful space while still remaining true to our lifestyle of living green.

Here is a before and after of the East yard area. This area connects the house to the far east paddock area we keep our flock of chickens, ducks, and turkeys.

BEFORE: This was day two. At this point, I was mildly worried about progress...

 AFTER: And here are photos of same East area of the yard AFTER!

BEFORE: Looking towards the west yard area, closest to the house, that leads to the pool. This before pic is before they were done, but after they dug up all the existing grass that was there to put in irrigation. It looked so barren with no grass during that phase of the project! The homeowners before us kept horses in the back acre. We are keeping it dirt until we decide if we want to landscape it or also keep horses later.

AFTER! Now the area across the yard leading to the pool looks much different!

The pool area got some Green, with red hibiscus, yellow lantana and white bower vines planted around the perimeter. The pool also got three baby queen palms and a date palm; small now, but will only take a few years to mature. The hibiscus havent bloomed yet, but when they do, next summer we will be surrounded in color. For now, there is some much added green.

Some of the flowers planted have started to bloom, which I am loving...and I'm not the only one...The ducks seem to really like my orange jubilee: (bad ducks. no. no.)

While the turkeys seem enamoured with my white bower vines... (bad turkeys. no. no.)

I love that we were able to work into the landscape a little bit of "English Garden" feel for me.

If you can believe this, Creative Environments got this whole phase done, start to finish, in five days. I have to admit by day two, when what little grass I had was dug up, and there were irrigation poles everywhere, I thought there was no way they would have it done in time, but they did!

This gated area here, is on the east and leads to our flock. It was already bordered by pine trees and gives shade year round to "our girls", (the chickens) and our ducks.

The workers, who had to walk through our "girls" area multiple times a day, soon realized they had several unofficial supervisors for this particular job... Here are Poppy and Jenny keeping order:

How do you do with big projects at your house? Are you easy going like Mr. Darcy? or do you get stressed about it all getting done like I do?

(This post has been linked back to the Homestead Revival Barn Hop. HR is a blog I found about 18 months ago; in fact their HR chicken button is up on my original Katie's Kettle blog I had back then! Highly recommend if you like the topic!) This post is also hooked up to the great outdoors linky party at Thistlewood Farm!

Blessings to you!