Then and Now
December 6, 2025
Four years ago (Dec 6, 2021):
Now (October 13, 2025, actually):
Observations:
:: ginkgo hasn’t grown much
:: growth clutters things up
:: less is better
:: time to stain the wood
Translucent Basil and the Glowiest Mums
October 10, 2025
Sometimes, the late afternoon sunlight that streams into the house through our west-facing windows just takes my breath away.
Befores and Afters
May 19, 2025
These befores are going to be embarrassing.
Let’s just say it’s been a messy spring (as Springs usually are around here, if I’m being honest) and the yard got away from me. I really didn’t think it had gotten as bad as it had.. and then I walked around the backyard a few days ago. Early spring had been a total delight with lots of bulbs and so many colorful blooms. And then, seemingly overnight, WHAM… an aggressive, unauthorized explosion of weeds and overgrowth. Mary’s been MIA more than her usual, we had lots of spring rain and more warm days than I think we usually get this early in the year. The result: well…. the befores I’m about to post.
After completing my loop around the backyard, a mix of hangdog and appalled, I called Ruben in desperation. He came over that afternoon. (Seriously, what a guy.) He seemed genuinely sad for our yard, a yard he planted from scratch just 4 years ago! Literally bare ground front and back. In 2021 he laid paths, created lovely rock accents, built a cool raised platform around Peter’s sycamore, formed boulder walls, built raised gardening beds, and planted hundreds (at least dozens) of trees, shrubs, and flowers (per our landscape designer’s expensive plans). He laid the whole irrigation system, built two fences (and to those added grid accents for climbing roses), stained the entire universe of wood structures on our property), and tons of other things I’m not listing here. In short: he created a masterpiece that we were really pleased with and proud of. Mary’s been maintaining it ever since — and I really respect and appreciate her hard work and skills — but she’s a hard one to schedule (something she disclosed at the outset) and things can get away from her. As I said, when Ruben looked at it, he was really bummed.
He’d brought with him Omar, one of his best laborers. He said that he’d be willing to give up Omar for a day (Ruben’s super busy) to work in our yard. He said Omar could whip our yard into shape, given one long day (and $300). He said, “Omar will be here on Monday morning at 6:00. Please have cash.”
Today was the day. Omar showed up at the promised 6am and got to work. He left — absolutely beat — at 6pm. It’s astonishing how much one person can get done in 12 hours! I love Omar.
So, here we go:
Front yard walkway:
Front yard boulder wall and terrace:
Back yard citrus orchard (I call it). A Meyer lemon and a tangerine.
Back most path, behind the play structure (now garden shed and observation tower and to the left and not visible in this pic). Hammock’s ready to be uncovered and set up for the summer, now that the rains are over.
Rounding the corner and heading back to the deck…
Taken from deck looking north.. the old bridge, herb garden, mound to the left and patio in this shot.
Omar filled the compost bin and then filled 6 large canvas tarps. He may have hauled off in his car others that I didn’t tally… maybe these are just the ones he didn’t have room for.. not sure. But this is a good day’s work!
I just can’t tell you how de-stressing it is to see the weeds gone and the yard’s features visible again (which they WERE just a month or two ago!!)
Wrong Color!
February 9, 2025
This is Mary. She’s been our gardener for the last three years or so (and I hope for years and years to come). She’s great.
She had just cut down [most of] our Chinese pistache, planted about 5 years ago, because DANG if it wasn’t the wrong color! Its leaves turn a nice yellow in the fall, which is fine.. but our sycamore also turns yellow and the idea was to have a pistache that had bright red leaves in the fall to offer a contrasting color in our front yard. Leaf color can apparently vary from pistache to pistache and you don’t know necessarily what you’re going to get unless you purchase your tree in the fall and see its leaves.
I’ve been wanting to replace this tree for a few years now.. and we finally got that ball rolling. We’re going to abandon the pistache variety altogether and go with a maple (I forget the exact type), which WILL have very bright red leaves. It also won’t be as large, so won’t crowd the still very much growing sycamore.
The stump was bigger than expected, so Mary’s coming back later with additional tools. We should be planting the tree (and another crepe myrtle on the north side of the driveway) in the next few weeks.
Life of Wry 