For almost 27 years I've gardened in this yard. I've had many different beds, plants, lawn areas and plans. But what has remained the same since we remodeled about 16 years ago has been the side yard on the far side of my front yard. It has been a 20x7 foot blank space. My former neighbor planted two peach trees right inside the property line just before the remodel and they have been growing rather poorly with not much care. My current neighbor mentioned that she would like to clean up her side and that was the nudge I needed to make a decision on what I wanted on my side. Having enough to water already, and not wanting to commit to much more water use, I opted for a drought tolerant area. And since taking out an area of cement in the spring for the day care demo garden I had a supply of broken cement and rubble. I used rubble for the path base and topped it with river rock and stacked broken concrete for bed edges. So I now have a path leading to the water meter and two narrow beds planted with liriope, salvias, New Zealand flax and an aloe that was getting too big for the pot it was in. My neighbor was worried that one of the children would run into her yard/driveway when they were leaving here so I got more of the really easy fencing I had used on the demo garden and closed in the side yard. I had a drip system in place for the back side yard on that side of the house so I was able to extend the tubing through a conveniently located knothole in the fence and put a few emitters for each plant. I don't run that section often since it covers only a few star jasmines and pandoreas that need little water so it works out great! And we're going to clean up the peach trees and get them in better shape this winter when they're dormant. (You can see the stake I propped up one of the tree branches with in the photo above...the trees have a great crop this year that is threatening to break branches.) Now there really is no empty space in my yard...unless I take out more cement!
