Nice work on the deck - looks awesome man.

My wife and I have been in our house for about a year now, time to start working on the back yard. We broke it out into3 phases (1) tiles for the outdoor living area (2) shrubs along the backside for wind block and privacy and (3) the lawn.

Phase 2 will be completed later this week. We just finished digging a 60-foot long ditch to prepare it for shrubs. Man, that was A LOT of work, a lot of digging into desert soil that is so dry it might as well be granite! My gardener is putting Xylosma along the back and that will provide great privacy for us.

Here's a picture of the ditch we dug. We have 60' along the backside, so its hard to capture it in a single shot.



Phase 1 is also underway. We know what tile we want, we just have to do the damn thing now. We're going to lay it ourselves, but it's about 500 sq feet. So, we want to make sure we have all the tools in place and what-not. I'm motivated to do that phase because it will be my new smoking area