The beginning

My wife and I bought our house in Van Nuys, CA in November of 2009 and this is what it looked like from the front at that time. On the left is a Chinese Juniper, center was a giant green leaf maple, right is a chinese yew. The grass was yellow and when it grew back, we had a massive weed problem. In addition, random mushrooms would pop up out of the ground. Later on, I learned that there was a massive beehive in the maple and huge portions of it's thick branches were hollowed out because of the bees. The mushrooms were popping up because some of the maple tree's roots were rotting below the ground. Crabgrass and dandelions grew wildly and spread very aggressively.

Our yard was the ugly duckling in the neighborhood for a long time while I was fixing the interior of the house. At the end of May in 2010, my parents and Sister came to our house and stayed over for a night. My mom was very happy to take photos all around the house because she was excited and proud that we owned property. I felt bad because the landscape was terrible. From that moment even though I had no landscaping or even gardening experience I became very motivated to make things nicer outside so that she would be able to come back and take nicer photos. My Dad had a love for all kinds of plants but some of the most memorable to me were the bonsai and desert potted plants. This was my starting point.

Below are photos of Mom, Dad, and my sister at our house the summer of 2010.



My sister is on the left, my wife in the center, and Mom on the right.