The Cooks went with our Drought Tolerant Special but upgraded to walk-on bark, added a few additional plants, as well as some crushed rock and aluminum border to create access to the backyard. Accessing the backyard required us to remove a few yards of soil to ensure the grade matches the driveway.
We began by removing all the grass from the front yard, removing a few plants, and skirting up the neighbor’s redwood trees (with their permission). Once that was complete, we carved out a swale for a dry creek and removed some soil for the crushed gravel access drive to the backyard. After carving out the swale, we set 3 tons of moss-covered landscape boulders to create the mouth of the creek and put a few boulders along the creek as well. With the boulders set, we laid out the plant material and ran drip irrigation. We brought in a combination of inch-and-a-half river rock and two-to-four-inch cobblestone to lay in the dry creek for a natural look. We then installed an aluminum border along the edges of the access drive before spreading and compacting the 3/4″ crushed rock for the access drive. Lastly, we dressed the yard with walk-on bark to finish off the yard.
