![\"\"](\"https:\/\/ahousebythepark.com\/journal\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/07\/twilight.jpg\")
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The front yard and and landscaping turned out to be one of the most pleasantly surprising parts of the entire project. Having never owned a house before and knowing very little about gardening or landscaping, we assumed the (one woman) team at Alexandria’s Creations<\/a> would do a nice job for us but that we’d probably want to change a lot of stuff later on. Alex’s work, however, has turned out so beautifully<\/a> that we don’t foresee wanting to change a single thing, provided all plants adapt nicely to their new environment.<\/p>\n A few months ago when landscaping work began, I posted details of what was going in where<\/a> so I won’t rehash that again, but there are a few other details to discuss, now that everything’s done.<\/p>\n For one reason or another, I decided to axe irrigation from the budget early on… probably because we were looking for stuff to cut in order to hit a number. As landscaping plans came into focus, however, it became clear that skipping irrigation now would only mean a year or two of laborious manual watering followed by a destructive installation of proper sprinklers later. For that reason, we added it back into the plan just in time and the folks at the Hale Company<\/a> came in and did a wonderful job for us. Because the driveway was already poured, Gary and the Hale team had to bore a small hole underneath it to run water there, but other than that, the install went smoothly and took about a week.<\/p>\n We created 4 sprinkler zones for the front and side yards and ran a water line to the backyard for if and when irrigation would be installed there. In order to tie the irrigation into our home automation system, we used the Rain8Pro<\/a> from WGL Designs. It’s probably the single ugliest piece of equipment in the entire house, but it’s also one of the best irrigation controllers on the market. Because it ties directly into the automation system, we can trigger it with moisture sensors, on a timed schedule, or even from a web browser or iPhone.<\/p>\n The Rain8: Beaten repeatedly with an ugly stick but still outperforms its peers.<\/p>\n So far, the lawn has not proved to be very difficult to maintain. It needs a little more watering than the plants, but since it’s flat and not very big, I can cut the whole thing with a manual push mower in less than 10 minutes. We’ll see how long I go until calling a neighborhood kid in to do it, but right now, I don’t mind it at all. I think there’s a difference in having a lawn you have<\/em> to mow versus a lawn you want<\/em> to mow. Right now, I’m in the second camp.<\/p>\n Landscape lighting isn’t too complicated of a subject once you get the hang of it, but I have to say, it’s pretty hard to find nice looking modern landscape lights. It seems like 99% of all landscape lights are either very traditional or very cheap looking. I thought briefly about using solar lighting, but after trying it in the back yard, I found it doesn’t really flood areas with any reasonable amount of light. The ones I found all used a tiny single LED bulb which only spread light across about a two foot radius… and spottily at that.<\/p>\n Through the advice of someone on Twitter, I called Sidney Genette at Lighting Designs<\/a> and hired him to put together a basic lighting plan for the front yard. I didn’t end up using the equipment he spec’d because I found fixtures I liked even better, but Sidney’s plan successfully lit up our paths, our lawn, and our plants.<\/p>\n We ended up going with some pretty expensive downlights in the BK Lighting Alpine PAR 30<\/a> (purchased from Stoller Inc.<\/a>), some moderately priced path lights in the Hinkley 1579SS<\/a> (purchased from LightingSale.com<\/a>), and some super cheap uplights in the Malibu 20 watt cast metal flood<\/a> (purchased from Home Depot<\/a>).<\/p>\n These are the BK Lighting downlights. Solid as hell. Maybe 15 pounds each. Kind of overkill though.<\/p>\n The Hinkleys are the real superstars, lighting up the walkway to the front door and providing a nice, modern, subtle accent to the concrete path, even in the daytime. If the Hinkleys are an A, the next closest path light I found was maybe a C-.<\/p>\n Mmmm, the Hinkleys. So modern, so smooth, so perfect.<\/p>\n Since we did so well on the overall house budget, Alex will be coming back in a week or so to landscape the back yard. It’s already beautiful so I can’t wait to see how it turns out.<\/p>\nIrrigation<\/h3>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/ahousebythepark.com\/journal\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/07\/rain8.jpg\")
<\/p>\nThe Lawn<\/h3>\n
The Lighting<\/h3>\n
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<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/ahousebythepark.com\/journal\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/07\/hinkley.jpg\")
<\/p>\nNext Up<\/h3>\n