Our backyard landscape

After getting 4 or 5 bids for our backyard we finally chose Tom from 1st Class Landscape. He was the lowest price by far and he did our next door neighbors yard which turned out really nice. She just told us to be patient with him. We also looked at a few of his other jobs around our neighborhood. We decided ahead of time that we wanted a fire pit and artificial turf. We also planned to double the size of our patio. We wanted to add on to our driveway as well as add pavers to the side of the house and add a pad for the garbage bins. We had to scale back on the size of the turf because of cost, but we're happy with the end result. The whole process was a headache. It took them almost the entire month of May to finish the yard.

May 6: They dug a trench for the gas line to the firepit.



May 7: The plumbing guy came and layed the gas line.
May 8: The plumbing guy came back to install the gas line.
May 14: They started building the firepit.



May 15: We noticed the bench was not straight so the ripped everything out
May 16: Finished firepit and started laying the pavers
May 19: The bench was still not straight so they redid it again and started laying the border for our turf.
May 20: Finished the patio pavers and started paving the side of the house.





At this point Tom was fed up with his crew. His main crew manager was out of town and the crew told him they could still work without him. Obviously, they couldn't. The pavers in the back were not straight, they layed the border for the turf wrong and did a lazy job on the side pavers. We were not happy. We couldn't understand why everything was taking so long. He had told us they could knock the pavers out in a day. They'd show up around 2:00 and work a few hours then leave. Tom told us he watched them working from a distance and they would just sit around. He called us one night and apologized. He was very embarrassed and said he was not proud of our yard and would not want to show it to anyone. He fired that crew and said a new crew would be showing up. Four days later they came.

May 24: Finished/fixed the pavers







May 26: Installed the drip line and plants



We saw this tree at the Temple with my parents. We looked it up and found that it's a Crape Myrtle. We loved it and knew we wanted one.

We planted an orange and tangerine tree.

We added vines to the back fence for privacy.




May 28: Added rocks, lights and grass.


We love the looks of these artichoke agave. We originally had three but decided it looked better with 5.

Luckily, we are very happy with the finished product. They did fix everything and now it looks great. It just took FOREVER.

We got this patio set on Cragslist for $125. A steal and we love it.

We had 4 families from our ward over the next weekend for a BBQ. We are really going to enjoy the firepit come winter.