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We’ve been working on our backyard these last few weeks, nearly every chance we get. I hear a few of you shout “show us the after already!” which I totally get. Trust me, I’ve been waiting way too long to share!
Let’s begin with our turf. I’ve received a lot of questions about it, and wont be sourcing ours just yet (I’ll do that in the final before & after post, sorry) but I will say It’s not from any big box hardware store. We did a lot (a LOT a lot) of research on turf (different blade structures, thatching densities, etc) as well as weighing the options of sod vs turf. We chose turf for a few reasons:
- we are low maintenance people and turf is the lowest maintenance option for grass out there
- we live in California where it’s almost illegal to water your lawn and we weren’t about to pay thousands to lay a sprinkler system and sod just to watch our lawn die
- because we had a dirt wasteland back here before, the cost of sod/sprinkler system + perpetual landscaper fees vs laying turf was pretty much the same cost.
- and lastly, NO MUD
Before showing you the full before & after, we have one last (big) task to do which involves sanding, staining, and sealing our floating benches because, stupid us, we didn’t do it last year and now they look like this – dry, sad, and sun bleached.
Not a fun project, but once it’s complete it will make a world of difference.
Now, since I feel bad about not sharing much of the afters yet, let me share photos of my backyard as of now, according to my phone!
See that guy on the bottom right in the above photo? I snapped this pic the day after these guys were planted. Two weeks later he’s grown!
All those new little buttons, pads, fronds, whatever they’re called, make me SO happy! Grow kiddo grow!
The perimeter of our backyard consists of a LOT of space, and I knew if I wanted to fill it up I would have to find some “filler” plants that still fit with the modern desert-scape theme I was shooting for. This guy above was $40, not too bad for such a wide sculptural plant. I bought a bunch of mini versions at $10/pot and peppered them around the perimeter of our yard, with the hopes they’ll grow like this dude.
Other filler plants I found were these wispy tall plants (I’m terrible remembering plant names and tossed the pots too soon, so if you know what they are, please leave a comment!) These were $30/pot at Lowes, and the aqua colored grasses were $5 pot, also at Lowes.
And guess what you see in the back?! MY AGAVE! He was my biggest individual purchase. Someone asked me how much one of these guys cost. In this size, I’ve seen them sold for as high as $900 and as low as $175, so it’s hard to say how much a mature guy like this should be. I bought mine for $175 (after negotiating a little) at Dry Garden in Berkeley (I love that place!). They currently have others with not so long of a neck for $200.
Besides my pet agave, I will say this euphorbia cactus garden my favorite little nook in the entire backyard. Oh, and for those of you concerned about my kid falling into these plants, do not fear! Almost all of these plants I’ve had for over half a year sitting in my sunroom where Zano frequently hangs out, and has learned that these plants are off limits. Right now we’re now working on him not throwing the rock all over the yard. Ha! That kid.
LOVE it!!! I live in CA too and we are going for the same look. Do you mind sharing where your café globe lights are from? I am planning to install some this weekend.
COSTCO! They are incredible, so durable and totally amazing i couldn’t recommend them more.
Awesome!!! Checking them out now. Thanks so much!
Oooh ooh *raises hand* I have turf questions which you can answer when you do the reveal or whatnot. My mother in-law is skeptical as all get out about it when I tell her about the idea because she hears it gets really hot for kids but I don’t imagine on a 100 degree day we’d be outside anyway but I’d love to hear how it’s holding up with your kiddo (have a 1.75 year old myself).
Did you guys lay it yourself or did you hire a company? How long did it take? Was it hard or fairly easy?
Great questions! I’ll definitely answer more in length in my next backyard post, but I think I can also quickly answer for you now! First, the grass does get hot when it’s in direct summer sun, but not so hot it would burn you. When it’s that hot we’re not outside either, but on a hot day we wear shoes when we’re outside, or lay down blankets if we are going to put our bodies on the grass. Also, any shade and the turf is totally normal temp. I will say the technology in the grass to deal with heat has definitely progressed over the years, considering turf is more popular than it probably has ever been and there are literally dozens if not hundreds of turf options out there. We didn’t get super cheap stuff because we considered the heat issue, and we wanted ours to look as real as possible (that’s where the thatching comes in, it’s like fake brown grass to not make it look so TURF like, if that makes sense). In terms of laying it, i’ll go more into detail later but no we didn’t do it ourselves mainly because our backyard needed a lot of labor to grade it flat. Also, when professionally installing turf there are a few layers that go down before the actual turf. Basically, it was a lot of labor and having someone do it right was worth the money for us. We have friends who laid out a small section of turf in their back yard and since their backyard was already flat and the section was small, i think they just did it themselves. That being said, it can be done on your own, just depends on what you’re willing to do yourself, you know? It took our landscapers a day and a half to lay all that turf (including the layers beneath) and I think there was at least 3 guys doing it.
Thank you for the info, it’s really appreciated! I think we’re gonna hire it out too, I’m sure we could do it ourselves but since it’s such a long term investment, I think I’d rather have pros do it. I’m glad you mentioned that advancement in turf technology thing, I think you’re right too. Looks terrific, here’s a a bitchin’ summer out there!
It’s looking great! Question about your agave, I recently planted four of these babies in my front yard and was wondering if you knew how long it takes for them to get this big and beautiful! I absolutely love these plants, I’m so eager for them to get larger
Good question! I think it takes YEARS. Mine is probably 10 years old…
We’ve been debating turf for our backyard too! We have trees that don’t allow grass to grow. :( Where did you end up getting it?
You should!!! We compared samples from John Deere and a local yardscape place, and ended up loving the JD selection and placed our order with them. I have to pull the samples out of our garage bc I forget which one we went with exactly.