Front Yard Makeover

I love free stuff. Therefore, I love CraigsList. I was pinning ideas on Pinterest to do some landscaping in the front yard (which currently has nothing but rock). I even hired a contractor to come and pour a concrete retaining wall and a new sidewalk. OR I thought of buying the tumbled stone from Lowe's and creating my own flowerbed. Then, my dad mentioned CraigsList.....and wouldn't ya know? FREE ROCKS!!

Well, maybe not completely free. There was a lot of labor involved in picking those up and moving them to the house. Thanks DAD!!!

So, we shaped a flowerbed and cleared out the existing rock and plastic..

Then began placing rocks to form the border of the planting bed.

We have some pretty rough soil here in the desert, so we mixed in quite a bit of DEODORIZED manure. Still pretty unpleasant smelling, though, if you ask me.

We also cut the extra plastic off and raked the rocks back into place.

In choosing plants, I stuck with very low maintenance plants that are indigenous to the area. I don't want a tropical landscape in the desert, I want something hardy that doesn't need a ton of upkeep. The backyard is where I spend my time. The front yard, though, will draw people into my home. Still, I want it to look like it belongs in El Paso.

We planted red yucca, red oleander, Texas sage, smooth agave and rosemary (which I can actually use in the kitchen!). All of these like arid dry soil, so they're perfect for the front yard.

After planting, we needed mulch....well more rocks. Mulch here just blows away in the wind and dust storms, so it's really not worth the money spent. I wanted a dark color contrast, so we went with red lava rock. I LOVE the look of it. 

Dad thought a few more rocks would make a nice statement in the flowerbed...I think he was right on.

I'm still not done here. We are eventually going to add a sidewalk from the existing one out to the street so guests don't have to use the driveway or walk through the rocks. But for now, at least we have some curb appeal. Another project checked off the list!!