Mike and Jeff's New House

This was taken today just after I finished planting a couple of deciduous azaleas...

I can not believe how hard it was to get all the gravel screened out of the planting beds in the front courtyard... Notice to home builders.....protect your planting beds if at all possible....the compaction was intense....

Jeff spent some time re-thinking the design for the garden on the freeway side of our house. We are going to going to tackle this garden this summer.... The `floor' will be 18'' by 18'' pavers. The `walls' will be wooden (or steel) fencing offset with 3x3 steel wire for growing vines. The rectangle in the middle of the drawing is a concrete table that we are going to try to cast ourselves. The three circles on the lower side of the drawing are 3 large ceramic fountains...The lower left corner has an L shaped bench that will surround a firepit..

I used this steel screen to sort the gravel and rocks out of the dirt..... Gardening is not always glamorous... I already sorted the gravel from this bed last year, alas, when I started to dig holes for these Teucrium chamaedrys ( http://www.mountainvalleygrowers.com/teuchamaedrys.htm ) , I discovered another lower layer that meant another round of screening... this bed is deep....and my back is sore....

Here is the `eyebrow' over the front door with the twin-wall polycarbonate installed. Here is the `eyebrow' over the south facing french doors in the dining room. Here is the underside view from the dining room, the twin-wall polycarbonate keeps the patio dry in the winter and only cuts about 5 percent of the light transmission. The finished roof on the garden shed.....Now, to get to the walls and floor....