It’s almost done! The paving still needs to be washed with muriatic acid to get rid of the cement film and expose the color of the aggregate and brick, I’m still going to hang a few things on those big blank walls, and the plants need to grow and fill in, but that’s about it.

It’s planted with a combination of salvias, cosmos, nerembergia Purple Robe, annual phlox, and vinca, all annuals that thrive in the hot summer sun. Since we overlook this little planter from the kitchen table, I plan to keep it in seasonal annuals so we always have something colorful to look at over breakfast. The vines on the trellises are bougainvilleas, which should grow to fill the space within a year or two.

I love the fountain!

(Still not quite finished is the utility area behind the stucco wall, where Frank has built me a new potting bench and shelves for pots and other garden stuff. I’ll post photos as soon as it’s finished.)

We have to wait 30 days for the stucco to cure before we can paint, and I have to wait until we’ve painted to plant anything in the new planter box.

So that’s what I’m doing. Waiting. Oh, and getting acquainted with my new fountain. It doesn’t look all that great now with the unpainted stucco and bare dirt, but I think I’ll like it surrounded with greenery. I’m hoping surrounding it with plants, and maybe adjusting the pump down just a little bit, will tone down the sound too. Right now it sounds like I’m filling the bathtub, which isn’t exactly the restful sound I’m looking for.

All the concrete and brickwork is finally done on our side yard and now I have a very bare and empty space to work with. At this stage, I’m inclined to panic and wonder what on earth I’ve done, but I have to just keep reminding myself how much better it will look filled with plants and the sound and sparkle of water from my new fountain.

The new stucco wall and the stucco patch on the garage wall where the window was removed have to cure for a few more weeks before we can paint them. The dirt to fill the patio will be delivered tomorrow, and the fountain that will sit in the V formed where the garage wall meets the stucco wall will be delivered Wednesday.

Behind the stucco wall Frank will build a new potting bench and shelves and we’ll get everything tidied up and organized (eventually). He’s also going to build a box to hide the water pipes and provide a place to hang my hose.

I’ll move the potted cactus and succulents back to their old positions and hit the nurseries to buy plants to fill that big planter. I still don’t know exactly what I want, so this summer I’ll probably just fill it with colorful annuals, vincas maybe since they take the Sacramento summer heat so well.

(The last photo is of the gate between the house and garage that goes to the front driveway.)

I always forget what a roller coaster a project like this is for me. I freak out for fear of making expensive bad decisions, then I’m elated when something looks good, and back and forth.

Frank and I make our own design decisions. After 22 years, our house feels as personal to me as our fingerprints, one decision after another that we have collaborated on and ended up with something that pleases us. It sometimes pleases others, other times not so much. But it doesn’t really matter as long as it pleases us.

As usual, this time we started with some practical considerations (the slippery and dangerous brick paving had to go, and the old wood planter was nearing the end of its useful life). The aggregate with brick trim started with our back patio in about 1993. I don’t remember why we chose it then, maybe with a nudge from the contractor who did that project for us. Then finally in 2006 we replaced the front driveway and reconfigured the front porch and entry with the same plum creek aggregate/brick combination.

So it wasn’t hard to decide to tie the front and back together by using the same materials again.

The stucco wall to replace the weathered old wood fence came about because the view from our kitchen table has always looked out to the corner where the fence met the stucco wall of the garage. That has always bothered me, because that view out from our large kitchen window is one we see every day of our lives, and it just looked wrong to me. The corner was usually hidden by a large plant, but I was always aware of it.

Still, I was uneasy when we started and not sure of the choices we’d made.

The guys who did the front driveway and porch project in 2006 and are now working on this project are great. Jim, the boss, and his friend Gary hear our vague instructions, tactfully fix the flaws, and make it look like we knew what we were asking for. They have spent hours measuring and calculating to fix the drainage problem, which was the underlying reason for the slippery brick. And did I mention that they work hard and quickly and for a very reasonable price? Since Monday morning, they have completely dismantled the old planter, fence, and brick paving, built the new stucco wall and planter and laid out the paving areas with proper drainage. Today, they’ll finish the brick and Monday they’ll start pouring concrete.

Now that I’m comfortable with the hardscape coming together and feeling like it should always have been this way, I can think about the fun parts.

Which parts of my old weathered fence gallery will make it to the new stucco wall? It’s so different that I no longer think recreating the old tableau will work.

The stucco wall and garage wall will be the same soft green as the rest of the house. I woke up in the middle of the night a few days ago thinking that I COULD paint the whole thing yet another outlandish color (the house shutters are a subdued deep lavender and the patio pergola is a deep teal), but I think I’ve decided that this wall should be a background, not a focal point.

I think I’ll have a simple ceramic urn fountain, similar to the one in my front yard, as the focal point in the corner of the new planter. What color should it be? The same green I used in front would just disappear against the green stucco.

We’d planned to re-create the trellis-with-climbing-rose-camouflage for the garage air conditioner, but we’re realizing that just won’t work, so the wall will be smooth and the air conditioner re-located to the back of the garage. Should I add a trellis with bougainvillea on the garage wall?

What will I plant in that big planter? I don’t use annuals anywhere else in my yard except as filler in some of the vegetable beds, but it’s always been nice to look out over a colorful bed of pansies or something in midwinter from the kitchen table. I’ll probably stick with the old plan of using seasonal annuals for a big burst of color here.

OK, this is probably WAY more than anyone else would ever want to know about this process, so if you’re still reading, my apologies. I’ll post more photos as we make progress.

We have a narrow side yard between the house and garage where Frank built a big planter box and fenced off a utility area for my potting bench, composters, etc., 20 years ago. The wooden planter has begun to lean ominously the past few years and, worse, the brick paving has gotten more and more mossy. In the winter when it’s wet, it’s so slippery it’s like walking on butter.

So today, finally, the guys are here to start reconstructing the whole area. The old brick will go, because it’s just too dangerous, to be replaced by hand-seeded plum creek aggregate concrete with brick spacers, the same as our front porch and back patio.
The weathered old fence where I displayed an evergrowing bunch of “stuff” mostly acquired on our travels (my favorite is the stone sundial from Provence, even if it isn’t situated properly to tell time) will be replaced by a stucco wall painted to match the house. Frank promises me we’ll be able to re-hang the stuff on the new wall.

The old wood planter will be replaced with a new brick-faced one, and my potting bench in the back will be re-built on the back of the stucco wall.

I hate the mess and disruption of this kind of project, but this one should go quickly. The guys doing it did our driveway and front porch a few years ago, so I know I can count on them to do it quickly and well.