This beautiful hibiscus made it to full bloom beside my garage all because my brother was broke, as in tapped out, as down to his last dollar, as in about to lose his shirt.
I won't go into detail here, but it was due to a tough divorce - ya-da-ya-da-ya-da. He needed a sister to loan him some money and a project to take his mind off of his troubles.
Since I'm his only sibling, and I love him dearly, I provided both. Fortunately, I had a little money to spare and a bare yard needing landscaped so we turned a loan into a barter.
Here's a picture after we decided on the area to cover and he brought in the fill dirt. It came in handy that he owned a pickup truck.
First he laid the brick border, all his own design. He hates straight lines (says they are boring), so that's where the sexy curves come in. Next he laid the weed barrier down and covered it with the gravel. Again, the truck was very useful!
I made a scale drawing with the measurements of the piece of ground. We took it to Alwert's Greenhouse because they have a couple of very knowledgeable women who will take your drawing and help you design the space.
A week later we went back to see what Alicia had in mind. She took us through the landscaping area and we had choices on what plants to put where based on her recommendations.
We had a lot of fun pulling a little red cart around and filling it up with plants. We loaded up the truck and off we went with landscaping plans all drawn out. By the way, this project wasn't limited to the side of the garage, it also included the front of the house.
Back at home, all the plants were lovingly planted according to our cute little diagram. Here's the result right after we finished planting:
The hibiscus plant you see on the cover photo is the 2nd one from the front, next to the garage.
And here it is in the 2nd season:
And here's a shot of the front landscaping, done at the same time. He also built the front porch!
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[credit@EdibleCthulhu]