Lights, Camera, Landscape

Its been a very long time since a posting appeared here. Moving in and winter stopped any type of updates... this seems to be the trend when you move in here! So three months later here are a few changes...

The outside lighting was replaced with the dark-sky friendly down-lights everyone else has. In the newly built houses they have been installing different lights and we knew we did not want to keep those. These are much better and will not blind our neighbors when the lights are on outdoors. Also placed the "eco-friendly" bug lights so we don't have pesky bugs by the door, a must in Austin!


Normally I think people wait awhile to get landscaping done in their backyards but we felt we had to do something right away due to the large slope we had in our backyard. We also needed a sprinkler system for the front yard. I aint watering by hand!

We contacted a few landscapers in January and actually settled on Agave Nursery (not any relation to the Agave neighborhood)! Since it was off-season we were able to have our backyard landscaped relatively quickly. We gave them total freedom on design but then changed a few things (types of plants etc). We wanted xeriscape and we got it! Very little water in the backyard! They also provided further phases for the future (when we have saved our pennies). They did a great job and it has a zen like feeling in the back yard now. There is lots of metal work for steps, stones, cactus and some mulch (which we can modify in future). The cactus was new for us but we really liked it.

Steps leading up You can see the metal and crushed limestone.

Steps leading down...

Interesting design by the deck, you can see the posts for the deck and this is kind of a walkway by the trees.

Cactus planters all along the steps. I have not learned the name of all cactus but the yard does have Inland Sea Oats, Mexican Feather Grass and Gulf Mulhy. The tree is a Palo Verde (desert museum) tree and there are no thorns!

Rusted pipe planters with cactus.. these things have some thorns.. or um needles. The pot to the side has an agave of course.

Colorful pots with cactus.. and more of that limestone on the ground!

Amanda from Agave Nursery came up with this really great big beautiful blue pot on the deck with another plant. You can see these from the road. Thanks to Agave Nursery and Amanda for the great ideas, design and wonderful work!

Hopefully posting will occur more often now boxes are unpacked!