The Mock Orange plant’s flowers grow in little white clusters. They attract lots of bees and they smell delightful.
It is funny to me to talk about plants currently in our yard because we might have something like 5 living plants, a few trees and a whole lot of dirt. One of our trees in the backyard we were thinking about taking out because it is growing into another tree. I had no clue what tree it was as I’d never seen any like it in our area. This month though it started blooming and the flowers helped me identify it as a shrub pruned into a tree. My mother-in-law also really likes plants and told me that it is a Mock Orange (Murraya Paniculata).
The Mock Orange plant (and the tree shaped shrub) seems drought tolerant once established. We have lived here for months without watering and it has scarcely drooped. In fact it seems to have quite a bit of new growth. Left unchecked it would get quite out of hand (but might be nice for a privacy planting). It has flowers that smell lovely!
This Tree in our backyard is actually a Mock Orange shrub pruned into a tree. At this point it is at least 20 feet tall.
My little reading nook set up with Ikea’s PS Vago chair and a small side table
When we moved in we spent most of our budget on fixing up the inside of the house, new walls (thanks to my dad of Dan Andersen Drywall), new floors (I have nothing but good things to say about Woodworks) and new AC. We have little to no budget to spend on redoing our yard as of yet, but have several events where it would be nice to have a place to sit in front or in back of the house. I have been looking online and in stores for stylish outdoor furniture at a great price. What I keep coming back to is the Ikea PS Vago chair. Read my update on how the PS Vago Ikea chair has held up over time.
Well I bought two of the orange ones and I think I am smitten. It was a bit of a challenge to fit in my civic and I regret not picking them up in a larger car or at least by myself (I had my son sitting in his car seat in the back seat so I couldn’t really cram them in there).
I’ve placed them in several spots and I think they fit everywhere. Plus they are really comfortable. I want to buy more!
While I am not someone who lives and dies by lists, it seems foolish not to have a plan in place when starting a project of this size. So here we go written down for posterity (or until I forget to pay for the hosting). Here are the steps that we have in place to transform our front yard from a landscape of dead plans and dirt to a respectable yard filled with curb appeal. My inlaws just brought down their rototill for us to use so we are getting close to ready to go!
Steps to a new front yard
make a plan of plants etc
rototill yard
set up irrigation
take out fence
grade yard
do forms and lay concrete for walk way put up new fence(?) make patio out of pavers or dg
Several months ago a friend of mine, Jenny of Jenny Wenny Cakes posted on facebook that her front yard, which is entirely succulents (please correct me if I’m…
Congratulations! You’ve decided to remove your lawn! For those in San Diego County, there is a turf replacement program that actually pays you to remove your lawn. Most people spend…
We lived in our last house for seven years and in that time we made many changes, but the one that we never did that I wish that we had was to remove the front lawn. That house also had an expansive backyard with a lawn, which we had planned on eventually making smaller, but that our dog roamed on and our kid played on (okay not really much as he was just over two when we moved out). It made sense that we would keep it though. The front lawn though was just a chore to mow. We actually started the process by removing the parking strip and replacing it with a drip and plants. It added a lot of curb appeal to the yard and cut our water bill by a bit each month.
Fast forward seven months and we are living in a new house and while we did many things inside to fix it up before we moved in, one of our first projects to tackle is removing the lawn in front. To be fair, we probably would have redone it anyway even if we were keeping it as there is no irrigation and we live in San Diego where rain does not fall consistently enough to keep a lawn alive. We had a hard enough time keeping our last lawn looking decent even with irrigation. I know that we would fail to keep this lawn looking anything close to presentable.
This is the front of our house as it looked when we moved in at the beginning of the New Year 2013.
Many people (read neighbors) seem skeptical about this decision and how it will end up looking. People have strong feelings about lawns. I predict that in Southern California where water is a scarce resource, removing a front lawn will become a modern landscape choice. I think that it will go well with our mid-century modern home and design aesthetic. Considering the expense and time of maintaining a lawn I think that it makes a lot of sense for our lifestyle too. And if we do want to throw a baseball around or roll down a grassy hill, we live a short walk away from a wonderful community park (also why we will not be putting in a swing set and slide).
This fantastic park is a five minute walk away with an expansive lawn that someone else maintains and pays to water.
Check back and see our progress and we slowly transform our yard into a space that we love and love being in!
