The backyard

We have been waging a losing battle with the weeds in our backyard. We live in South Florida and our yard is too small for a pool (we have power lines on our backyard line and regulations require that a pool be at least ten feet from the power lines so you don't electrocute yourself cleaning the pool. It doesn't seem unreasonable to me!) and while I like the look of grass, I apparently have not been offering the grass what it wants because the weeds have proliferated and the grass... not so much. We also had a problem with the rain running off the patio roof killing some of the grass.

So my husband said, "Why don't we just pull up all the grass and plant bigger plants?" Ok, that seems like a good idea. So we drew some pictures of what we had in mind and laid out our garden hoses so that we could see what a path would look like and my vision was that we would start on this during our winter break (when it isn't 90+ degrees with a million percent humidity). My husband wanted to start right away. In July. In South Florida. Yay. So we killed off the grass with sheets of plastic and Roundup (not my favorite strategy but some of these weeds are pretty persistent). We had stone hauled to create drainage for the rain coming off the roof. We dug up all the dead grass. We put down weed block fabric (which I would never do again). We bought and planted plants, like an avocado tree and blood orange tree, as well as ornamentals like pentas and flax lilies. And this week, my husband finished the pergola (which in the initial incarnation was just a bench, but grew into a pergola). I think the backyard is really coming together!