The west yard is the part of my property to the west of the garage. The earliest photos I have of the area are dated to May 14, 2013, 11 days before I moved in. It was basically bare, with only St. Augustine grass everywhere except on the garage side of the walkway, which had an assortment of unkempt plants, including irises, an oak sapling, and whitemouth dayflower, growing through the holes in the bricks that covered the space.
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It remained this way throughout 2013 and 2014. On February 17, 2014, I could see
iris leaves, a
water oak seedling, and some unhealthy young
whitemouth dayflower coming up through the bricks and leaves.
Just on the other side of the walkway, some
mouse-eared chickweed, along with some small
yellow woodsorrel, early
oriental false hawksbeard, and emerging
bermuda grass, was taking advantage of the edge between the concrete and the grass on February 17, 2014.
On March 7, 2014, a
ten-petal anemone was in its pre-fruiting stage, withe the elongated fruiting body and dropped petals.
By March 11, I had noticed a clematis growing in front area of the west yard.
This photo, taken on June 10, 2014 indicates how my western neighbor had mowed his lawn more recently than I had mowed mine.
A photo from October 19, 2014 shows my continuing neglect of the area. The plant growing over the walkway looks like
lawnflower.
Here is a view of the west yard taken from the back yard gate on November 2, 2014. The front end of the garage marks the southern end of the west yard. The hedges extend westward to the property line.
On or before January 25, 2015, I bought four fruit trees: a
Meyer lemon, a
"frost Owari" satsuma, a
pomegranate, and a
fig. I planted the satsuma in the west yard at some time before March 29, probably in early March, and the other three went to the
west front yard.
The following winter, in 2016, I bought two more satsuma trees and planted them in the west yard sometime before March 20, when I removed the grass from all three satsumas in the west yard. The first picture below shows that the satsuma I had planted the year before had not grown much, if at all. It was plagued by insects and fungi.
The two new satsumas were healthy and bright green. At the time, they were still attached to the support rods from the store, so they stood upright even though they were still not sturdy enough to hold themselves up on their own.
On April 15, I put a plastic barrier around newly created bed, and surrounded the barrier with pavers stacked two high. The pavers had been sitting on my back porch for months after I removed them from under the arbor.
By May 15, I added the liner and bricks around the two new satsumas too. When I removed the support rods, they both leaned over almost to the ground, unable to support themselves.
I had also put the same beds around the three fruit trees in the west front yard, and to keep enough pavers for them to be on top of all the circles around the beds, I started removing the bricks (with holes) from the space between the garage and the walkway. This also gave me a chance to dig out some of the unwanted plants that had grown among the bricks.
On January 7, 2017, after the first night of the big freeze, the two new satsumas had some yellow leaves, but they survived.
At some point, I put bricks and pavers back into the area from which I had removed them. On January 19,
oriental false hawksbeard was growing through some of the bricks.
By March 10, 2017, I had removed the oldest, unhealthy satsuma and covered all three beds with pine needles. The newer trees were holding themselves up better.
Then by April 16, I planted the new Meyer lemon I bought in the bed where the first satsuma had been.
