Regrets, I have a few...

Hubby and I are approaching our 1 year anniversary from the day we bought our house. I can remember how envious we were when friends would talk about working on their yard during the summer. We longed for the day we could work on our own yard. Ah, to be young and dumb.

Back in May, we decided that our "major summer redo" would be our front yard. It has an odd layout, pathetic dead grass, and these tiny "lava rocks" that we would kick up whenever we stepped in them. After receiving numerous quotes on what it would cost to get the yard we wanted, we decided to roll up our sleeves, and do the work ourselves. Easy right? Did I mention we live in the desert where temps reach 100 plus in June, July, and August? Did I mention our particular city reached a record drought period? Here is the yard: I can't believe I'm friggin showing this to you

Oh! Did I mention the lone rosemary plant? See those stepping stones? They lead to a corner. A rosemary corner. ???

"Where's the rosemary," you ask? It died when we had a record breaking freeze. Yes, this is the city I live in... record breaking freezes AND droughts in the same year.

Working in the yard has SUCKED! There. I said it. Here is where we are at, and it ain't much:

First, where there is grass, we don't want grass. We wanted to create a divide, where one side would have broken concrete pieces (made to mimic flagstone steps) and the other side would be our desert landscaping.

Using our garden hose (technical work here, people), I laid out the design I wanted for our "wall." Once we were happy with the design, we started digging. We dug about 4 inches deep, and flattened the ground as best we could. Then we started laying in our rocks (reused from the rosemary section of the yard) and making sure it was all level. Lastly, we filled in the gaps with dirt.

Is this how to properly build a wall? Probably not. It works for us and cost nothing. THAT makes me happy. I don't have a photo of what it looks like now. We added a second layer of rocks and planted a Japanese Boxwood at the end of the wall. The plant is nearly dead and I am annoyed.

Any suggestions from readers? Photoshop would be awesome if anyone cares to play around with our yard. Anyone know of some desert plants/trees to save me from a project fail?