Setting Up My Yard: BEFORE & AFTER

If I had known that I was going to be starting this blogging thing, I would’ve taken lots of before and after pictures. It’s my MOST favorite part of every blog that I read! I, on the other hand, have very few pictures and most of them are after I made a few improvements to the house. I guess I was too horrified to take pictures of what we walked into…

This is after a month or two when I had grass, plants and flowers put in. It used to be a pile of sand…

When we moved into our home, both my yards (front and back) had no grass, a sad tree, and lots of sand. While it is a FANTASTIC space that I really appreciate now, all I could think about at the time was how much work and ‘mullah’ it was gonna take to fix up. Luckily, the gardening group in the compound is incredibly resourceful and helped me plant some local grass, flowers, and some plants. I also had that sad little tree with no leaves in my back yard moved to a corner in the front yard.

Since then, there have been a few nice changes, and I officially love gardening. A lot of my plants have grown in really nicely including my little tree, which is now a happy tree with leaves! I’ve also added more flowers, more plants, the grass has grown in and we invested in a comfortable patio set + umbrella.

Patio Set & Planters: Sultan Garden Center, Flowers: Sultan Gardens & Dhahran Garden Group

I had gray tiles and bricks brought in from Dammam and put them in to help divide up the yard a little and give it a cleaner look. A lot of people opt for red bricks and tiles because it looks pretty, but they tend to fade over time so I stuck to gray. I had a few large rocks and pebbles put into the corners of the yard to add some texture and depth. I also had wall lighting put in since my spotlights kept getting damaged by the raw water that we have here. I didn’t want to change too much structurally, but wanted to enhance the features in my yard and create an extension of our living space. We spend a lot of time out here now, especially during the winter!

Flower order from front of picture (left) to back of pebbled area: 1. Hybrid Ixora, 2. Tomato plant (you can barely see it), 3. Philippino Violets, 4. Hybrid Chinese Ixora (I think… smaller and more contained than the first Ixora), 5. Hybrid Bougainvillea; Flowers in picture to the right 1. Petunias 

My inspiration. My jasmines. I have a local breed and a larger breed from South Asia. On a hot, humid, summers day, all you can smell are jasmines in my yard…