That looks awesome! I think using the dry creek to break up the turf was a good idea. If it was one big swath it might be more obviously turf. It looks so natural this way. Good eye.

Jimmy, looks great, I really like how you set it up, and the river is perfect in the spot you picked, breaks it up a bunch. Looks all natural..........I am so inspired, I have a walk way, that is all large stone, but grass doesn't grow real well there, so I am thinking of getting small stones, and see if that looks better than just dirt....

@Jenn...Thank you!!!! I'm just mostly happy I don't have to step over that big roll of turf in my garage anymore, lol. I did this while I'm sick so it did take a lot out of me, and although it doesnt look exactly like how I envisioned it, Im pretty happy with it. I'll explain some of the issues I ran into down below, but yeah, I think putting the river where it is helped a lot.

@Renee, thank you! hope you can make your pathway work for you, I'll show you how I changed my pathway in my next pics...maybe you can do something similar?

ok, so after the grass was put in, its very green, very clean so it kinda made other things look drab and old...one of these areas was my pathway to my little bench, it was stepping stones and mulch so i changed it to the same stepping stones but used DG (decomposed granite) its like sand in a way but hardens to form a solid foundation


One of the issues I ran into was cutting this stuff. Cutting from the back, it cuts like butter, cutting from the front, you can't even get the blade thru it so any cuts meant reversing "image", meaning the free form line I wanted to form along the river for plants was, for me, risky...so after a couple tries, I gave up and went with a straight line, so I added yet more boulders along the plants to break up the straight line, it REALLY bothered me


For plants, I added Euphorbia "Diamond Frost" (lil tiny white flowers...I have one in the yard already and I like the way it drapes over the boulders, its in the background of the last two pics in the left hand side where its draped over those highest boulders...I also planted one Hymenoxys acaulis "Sundancer Daisy" (lil yellow flowers) and then filled in the rest with seasonal color, in this case Iceland Poppies, this will allow me to change flowers with the seasons


I also finished my river at its starting point...


One more issue I had was I envisioned mounds in the grass, but they werent working out so well, so while I have it sloping, with high and low areas, its not how I planned it but im ok with it overall. I also used DG as the base instead of gravel (I just picture gravel moving around when stepped on) I put weed barrier down, then the DG. (no pics of this though, lol

It came out beautiful, Jimmy! I am seriously jealous of your gardening skills.

looks great! bummer on the cutting, next time news paper makes a great template for cutting out large patterns the big boulders help hide the straight line.
love the poppies, i planted one last summer, hoping to have blooms this yr.

Jimmy, it looks fantastic. I am interested in the DG, is it found at Home Depot or Lowes? I have never heard of it and it looks great. I love my rock pathway, just hate how it looks with no grass. It will also make it easier to keep in one place, where gravel of course will go everywhere. I love how it looks, so tidy and neat.

looks very beautiful.

@Ashleigh...thank you so much! I'll trade for your photography skills! lol, seriously! You won't believe what I did again! Last Thursday was Kohdi's bday, I took them both to the pet store to pick out some toys, took pics only I had it on the video setting (and it's not even my new camera this time!) so atm, I'm trying to find a way to get screen shots from the videos (vids are only like 2 seconds long cuz I was pushing the button as if I were taking pics, so they're not worth uploading) so I can FINALLY update poor Kohdi's scrapbook

@Jennifer...thank you! yes, cutting sucked. I had thought about a template but my piece of turf was getting smaller and smaller already so I just went with the straight line, I'm thinking once the plants grow and fill in, that line won't even be seen. Yes! I love the poppies! Last year I bought a bunch of them for the backyard, Mishka kept eating every single flower. I kept stopping her when I would catch her but as soon as my back was turned, she'd take another one. These in the front are safe

@Renee...thank you! the DG is sold at Home Depot, I'm not sure about Lowes but I'm assuming, yeah. It's where their bricks/blocks/stepping stones are in the gardening dept. I love this stuff, when it gets wet it seems to bond together, yet still is not permanent like concrete, and just needs a light raking here and there to freshen up. Not too expensive either.

@Ronin...thank you! I'm just glad it's done, lol

Wow, amazing job Jimmy! I love the color combos especially how the flower colors pop out against the grass. How many hours in total would you say you put into this project?

Thank you Amanda! I'm anxious for the plants to fill in more and I still wanna get the plants I have by my fountain for this area too, I ended up going to 6 garden nurseries but nobody had them. I bought a small cedar tree that just looked AMAZING by this river but it didn't fit the overall look so I brought it back. I really like looking out there and knowing I don't have to mow, water, fertilize and it'll always look like this, lol, even though I really don't like fake stuff, I've come to be ok with it, hahaha.

Hmm, well...I used up about 3 weekends to do this, but not like full on work days. This last weekend for example, Saturday I bought all the stuff to get it going, installed the turf and planted the plants and believe it or not, moved around a lot of the boulders I already had in place, lol. If u look at the first pics, compared to the last pics, many boulders are in different places, hahaha. Then yesterday all I did was the pathway, the finishing of the river start, and that's about it. I was done with those things by like 11 am. The weekend before was doing the river/moving boulders, and then one day of a previous weekend bringing down the soil level/removing old grass.

Holy mackeral! Jimmy that sounds like a ton of work and it only took you 3 weekends to do all by yourself? You're the superdogdad of gardening! LOL as far as the fake stuff, I love it. You really save a lot of money because it's so low maintenance so it's a smart move.

I bet you could purchase the specific plants you're looking for online also. I was googling some thyme because I wanted to plant them on a large scale so that I could phase out some grass in a section of my yard. I came across this company online and they seem to sound pretty good. I didn't get a chance to look up reviews yet but they might have what you're looking for.

https://www.mountainvalleygrowers.com/groundcoverthymes.htm

Took these pics last nite, I added a small (1 gallon size) Japanese Black Pine tree to the left side of the river.

Wow! That's such an amazing job! Are you really sure you're on the right career path with the property manager? I think you have a calling in landscape design I love how the rusty colors on the boulders really pop against the greenery. I don't know my plants very well but I think someone said the flowers are poppies? Those poppies add just enough of a hint of color without distracting from the river.

Hey, Jimmie - I have one question for you. Have you neighbors put as much effort into their lawns (or hired it done) as you have with yours? If I had you as a neighbor in a city setting I'd be feeling a lot overwhelmed.

@Amanda, Thank you so much! and yes, those are poppies, I wish they were year round plants cuz theyre one of my favorites, very delicate though, overhead watering knocks the flower petals right off. And yeah, Id rather my career be something like this but...hmm, maybe if it became a job I wouldnt enjoy it as much. The management company is where I learned the importance of curb appeal though! LOL

@Al, most of my neighbors have hired help, a few do themselves, and unfortunately theres also the ones here and there that do nothing, mostly the rental homes where the owner doesnt care about anything other than his rent check.

My Amaryllis is starting to bloom again! Snails have been chomping on the buds, I didnt think any would make it, but YAY!


Here is where its located in the bigger scheme of things


And my Angel Trumpets are starting to bloom like crazy1 these things smell sooooooo good

Very nice Jimmy. I don't know whether it was intentional or not but the "grass" is just rough enough that it looks real (well, at least in the pictures).

Thank you Al. I just did the final process on the grass last week, and that was to apply silica sand a little at a time, brushing it in, applying more, then brushing again, and then again. I think in total I used about 120 lbs of silica sand. I guess the purpose of it is absorption and to add weight.

Been a lil while since Ive updated here...got a few pics of my vegetable garden and updated pics of my front yard with things starting to fill in a bit more.

100+ degree heat last week, only twice a week watering, doesnt look too bad!







My Dahlia, I thought it had died, I was wrong, lol, it decide to pop back up...only now I have a river there, im leaving it where it is, haha



My vegetable garden

Giant Marconi sweet pepper

Big Bertha Bell

Summer Set Tomato is only one with fruit so far, I have 5 tomato plants in total

Pumpkin plant

Cantaloupe

Watermelon...gonna be a mess of vines in there I know, but I'll just see what comes up and what doesnt

beautiful front yard love the flours. nice veggie garden my tomato's are doing that too, they haven't grown much.

Oh the front turned out so good!!! hope the heat does not take its toll on all the plants.

@Ronin, thank you!!! I wonder what it is with the tomatoes this year, usually I have all kinds. I wonder if that little heat wave stunted their growth or something. Since I have the garden in a new spot, I thought maybe it wasn't getting enough sun or something, but that's not it, it actually gets plenty of sun.

@Jennifer, thank you!!! I'm really glad I did it cuz right now, I'd be looking at dirt and dead grass if I hadn't. Plants are doing surprisingly well! Only ones to show signs of stress are some of the impatiens (I knew they would, but tried to plant them under "shelter" of other plants to help minimize loss/damage) a few got fried, and my Santa Barbara daisies shut down on blooms. Other than that though, everything is moving along great!

My latest project, haha. My neighborhood had one of those neighborhood garage sales where the entire street was involved if they wanted to be. My next door neighbor is moving so he had to get rid of a lot of stuff and he had this wicker patio set (2 arm chairs, a bench seat and a coffee table with glass top)for only $75! I thought that is a steal so I bought it cuz I always wanted my fire pit area to have a "U" shaped seating area and it fits perfectly!  


but then I got to thinkin'...the ones I see at the nice hotels and stuff are darker in color, so thats what I wanted...never ever again will I paint wicker, it was a P I T A! the paint I used, couldnt be bought in spray cans nor 1 gallon sizes, so each can of this paint was small and cost a lil more than $9 a piece...I used 8 cans! its satin expresso in color. Anyways, here is the finished project...I still need to buy cushions (which Ive been pricing and they seem hella expensive so they might have to wait awhile)

Really like the colors, Jimmy. The cost of cushions...ouch!!! Especially if you go with sunbrella but, I will tell you, the sunbrella is worth it. The boat next to ours has a black sunbrella sail cover - we were chatting when I put on the new one I made - he said his was well over 20 yrs old...and it looks brand new. But - if you are one who likes to change up the patterns every few years...Walmart carries some good looking patterns.

Thank you Amy!

Ugh, I looked online last nite and couldn't believe the prices for these cushions, like the bench alone averages about $200, so not sure how I'll do it yet. These were end of season sale prices too! I did look at wal-marts site and the patterns are pretty but I've never liked patterns, I'd prefer a solid color like off white or a sandstone color, I can add throw pillows for color.

Yes, I love sunbrella products! They are worth the xtra money.