Drought-Tolerant Garden--the Next-to-Last Phase

Our drought-tolerant, critter-friendly garden is almost finished! Once not too long ago, the front yard looked like this:

 (Hi, Won Ton!)

Then the plants were installed (and Won Ton helped):

With everything installed, it looked like this. You see a little bit of dirt scattered here and there, left over from digging in the plants:

Then the first delivery of decomposed granite (DG) arrived:

And it was put in place around the plants, covering up the drip lines:

Already things began to look better--and the bees approved!:

But we still had black, weed-blocking material exposed in areas that would be pathways.

A delay at the Port of Los Angeles held up the DG designed for the paths. The pathway DG has a stabilizer in it that makes it more compact and stable, but less permeable to water. So you only want it where you might walk. The yard looked like this for a couple of weeks:

At last the DG for the pathways arrived. Here's the yard, with the black material completely covered up:

The roses are still all in place. There's a pathway along the fence for the pugs to run back and forth. They love to bark their heads off at the cars passing by. Great fun, if you're a dog:

Here's the yard, as seen from the porch. I'm not sure about those outdoor lights, just sticking out there so prominently. But these plants are just babies. In a year, they will have filled out to be taller and lusher.:

I may have to wait for the plants to grow up, but in the meantime, I can enjoy the increase in visitors to the yard.

The Goldfinches have been a presence all along. They don't care if the yard is filled with water-hogging grass or drought-tolerant, flowering plants. They just love their Niger seed:

Almost as soon as the plants were dug in, I noticed more hummingbirds visiting:

Cute little buggers! I've also noticed more butterflies, but I don't have a good photo of them. 

The final phase will be installing things to attract more birds and even bats. The owner of my local wildlife shop came to visit, and he says the yard is ideal for a bat box, a Barn Owl box, a crow-feeding platform, and as many hummingbird feeders as I'd like to install.

I can't wait to get started.