My back yard is HOT. I mean, really, really, hot. All plants are classified as shade, part shade and/or full sun. They need to come up with a new category for outdoors spaces like my back yard….bloody hot. It also gets pretty moist back there because  I think the developer of the neighborhood hired 14 year old kids to plan and grade the land before they built these balsa wood houses, so water tends to pool in my backyard. I may be exaggerating….I’m confident any 14 year old could do a better job. I’m totally off topic but I’m sure you can tell that I think the developers were morons (and so did the 3 landscape professionals we consulted before I had 3 additional water tiles installed).

I also have a bit of a privacy issue. The ASSociation will not allow fences, so I live in a fishbowl where everyone has full view into everyone’s lives…er, I mean houses. I am on a quest to create privacy that the higher powers will ‘allow.’ I am going to keep adding to my garden until I grow some privacy. My kids LOVE this neighborhood and at the time, I thought it would be a good idea. I love to see my kids happy, so I wear sunglasses and talk to the dog a lot when I’m outside. When you talk to a dog, people assume you’re crazy or busy and I’m ok with either.

Fortunately, I’m an optimist and I have a good sense of humor (and a lot of wine). For every challenge there is always a silver lining!!! Hibiscus, tall grasses, peonies, callas and elephant ear grow so beautifully in my back yard. My raspberry bushes LOVE it back there and my raised vegetable beds get plentiful sun! I like my house both inside and out….somedays I just wish it was positioned on 10 acres of nothingness.

I took this picture at Disney in ‘France’ last May and thought it would work great in my back yard!  I know succulents would grow and thrive in the heat in my back yard, as long as they aren’t planted IN the ground, so I have decided to grow them in a vertical garden around the patio.

This is the perfect way to define the space to create a little more privacy. Do you think the ASSociation would have a problem with this vertical garden if it was 7ft tall?