Phase I - The Garden Renovation

The first thing I did after John, my fiance/husband proposed and said "Go ahead and get the garden in shape for the wedding," was get rid of the grass. My neighbors constantly complain about having to rake the leaves dropped by the hundreds of live oaks on our properties. I decided to embrace the leaves and get rid of all my grass. The grass wasn't in good shape to begin with, but renting a tiller to dig it up was difficult. I guess we had more grass than we thought. However, getting rid of the grass helped my allergies substantially. For that reason alone, I highly recommend getting rid of your grass, not to mention your watering requirements are drastically reduced and the leaves make great mulch. Phase II was getting a pond installed. This is the view from my living room window before the pond installation.