Transformation Tuesday: Labor Intensive!

Although this transformation might look like a simple change, the amount of labor was extensive! The client wanted the front yard to go from natural to manicured. They also wanted several types of grass to break up all the gravel, as well as a locust tree. Lastly, the client wanted a holding pond to prevent the rainwater coming off the canale and messing up the gravel.

The first step in this transformation was to clear the vegetation and level out the area. This took several hours of using picks, shovels, and rakes. One thing that is sometimes overlooked by when doing gravel is the need to remove several inches of dirt from the areas where the cement and dirt meet. Failure to do this results in the gravel being higher than the cement, which leads to more gravel on your cement, as well as a visible weed barrier.

Once all the "dirty" work was complete it was time to plant!

Karl Forester grasses were chosen in order to break up the gravel area. Next, we planted the locust tree between the pinion tree and the pyracantha. We needed to trench a dry river bed to where the retaining pond would be located in addition to trenching out the holding pond.

Since it was such a large area, we used pins to hold down the weed barrier and filled out the area with gravel. River rock that was 2-4" was used to fill in the dry river bed and holding pond. The client was extremely pleased with the manicured look of the yard and so were we!