Better late than never, I've been wanting to get around to writing about our adventures in garden design this past year. Last summer was a long and infamously hot drought-filled summer, so much so that by the time we finished our backyard hardscaping, I was too tired (and too hot) to write. Thankfully, armed with my new SLR camera, my husband and I took hundreds of pictures.

When we first moved into our house, it was the backyard that sold me. Nothing special to some people but for this neighborhood it has a long yard, which is nearly twice the size of our house. Most of the original platted properties in this neighborhood have been divided into two lots in the last 20 years.

Today I was reading some blogs and articles online at Sunset. It's my new favorite magazine to read about gardens and design. Although it's meant for "living in the west" which mostly means California but there are occasionally articles on landscapes in the western states like Arizona or even New Mexico. It stops just short of Texas but then so do most gardening magazines! I dig this magazine because the designs in California are just so darn free-thinking, creative, inspiring. Landscape design in Texas tends to me much more straightforward and practical and so (as I've learned) are its landscape...…