Front yard is done! (mostly)

Our front yard has been an eyesore since we moved in last year and we have been dying to do something with it, especially since the weeds were out of control! We decided awhile ago that we wanted to do xeriscape with a flower bed by the front porch and an evergreen tree. There are lots of landscapers out here but many of them were super busy. One company I called said they couldn't do it until January! So we lucked out and found someone who did it about 2 weeks after he gave us his quote. Here are some before pics:

Just ugly!

Here are some pics while the work was in progress:

The dry riverbed coming from the rainspout.

Our lovely evergreen tree before being planted.

Our flower bed with a boulder border.

This is the finished yard once the landscaper was done. It turned out a bit more bland than we thought it would. So we decided to add a bit more...

Here is the flower bed with the plants and mulch added.

For the rock area we decided a few red lava boulders would help add some color!

The yard definitely looks a lot better now than the field of weeds it was! The next project is our park strip. Since we are on the corner, we have a very long park strip that we have to maintain. So we opted for rock again since it will be much easier! We had some rock left over from the front yard, so we decided to use some of it for the park strip and we will be getting a different kind to alternate sections. Poor Carlton spent about 4 hours this past weekend shoveling rock into these sections. Hopefully he can rent a bobcat or something to finish it!

In other news, the kids got to see their first real parade in person this past weekend! Pioneer day is a huge holiday in UT and they had a parade in SLC for it. Carlton ran a half marathon that morning and we met up with him to see the parade. The kids enjoyed the first hour and then Gavin was done! LOL It was pretty hot and we were sitting directly in the sun, so we were fine with leaving before it was over! Here are a couple pics:

 

Hope you are enjoying your summer and staying cool!!