(gentle music) - When I first started planting, I would plant full sun plants in full shade.

And so I kind of just had to learn what worked.

I kind of just built it up one plant at a time in my downtime.

I found that it was like a very meditative and fun hobby.

Well, my name's Cyrano, and I've lived here for six years.

Even though both my parents were big gardeners, it never really piqued my interest, I guess, until now.

And so I just started planting in the yard because there wasn't much here.

The slope of the yard was definitely a challenge and so I didn't really have a design in mind, and I didn't really intend for it to be tiered like it is now and have different sections at different levels.

But that's kind of just how it played out.

It was just, well, I'm gonna do this corner because I wanna look at something pretty there and then kind of like a puzzle, you just keep adding on to that.

You could lay out pavers in a straight line, or you could create a pattern and make it, you know, prettier to look at.

I think the best way to do it and find that flow is to walk the intended route a few times and see what feels most natural.

And then from there, you have your path on where to lay your pavers out.

And you might not always do them in a straight line.

It might be staggered just to create a little bit of fun in that short little movement, in that little walk.

I created a barrier with plants just to separate the areas and kind of highlight the different areas and make them separate.

And that was just a better alternative to me than putting up a fence.

First of all, 'cause it's a rental property, so I'm not trying to throw money into it.

And so making a barrier with plants was just a different way of creating different spaces, separating spaces out.

A lot of the plants I got for free, you know, from either trading or maybe my mom gave me some of 'em.

The front strip of the yard is sort of part sun, so I kind of just wanted to add a lot of color to look at as you're passing by it.

And kind of, just stuck in little treasures and things I've found just to add points of interest to the yard, I think, so that when you're walking by it, small things will catch your eye that you maybe didn't see there before.

Especially I'm attracted to plants that have the kind of blue or silvery-looking foliage.

I think that's why I wanted stuff with the attractive foliage, so that if it doesn't bloom a lot, I'm not let down.

There's still something there that's appealing, you know, to look at.

And then the path I kind of created for my cats to walk through, but they don't use it.

What spurred on the more clean look of the north side of the front yard was just that I happened to have a lot of nice-looking gravel, and so I wanted to kind of work around that and not make it as wild or crazy-looking, whereas the south side is more like found materials that I like dug out of a dumpster, or I got off Craigslist.

I wanted to try to make it, to keep it clean-looking, and that's why there's kind of a bunch of right angles, especially with some of the rocks that aren't supposed to be stepped on.

They're just there, kind of to separate the area, but also just give it an interesting feature to look at.

I can't remember where I got the sink from, maybe on the side of the road, but I just had it sitting around.

So I decided to bury the sink and then plant the hoja santa in there and I topped that with rocks just to give it a kind of cleaner look.

But the sink kind of creates a little border around the plant.

I think it's an old shower basin.

It's really heavy.

But that was buried in my backyard.

So that had been here, I don't know, that's probably been here for 20 years or whatever.

And I sealed the holes with waterproof tape 'cause there was a drainage hole in the bottom, I guess for the bottom, you know, the bottom of the shower.

And so I thought that would make a great pond.

I really liked the teal coloring to it.

It happened to have pond liner leftover from a landscaping project, and so I knew that I wanted to add a second pond that would be in-ground.

I actually put clay in the bottom of the pond because that makes a really good pond soil because it doesn't float.

And so that's how I was able to plants in there.

I felt weird buying rocks, but I did buy pea gravel and then river rocks.

And then the gray kind of pavers.

I just got out of a dumpster.

And so I kind of just happened to have those laying around.

The kind of obelisk looking fountain was also created with those pavers that I scavenged.

And the actual fountain is just a hollow old steel pipe that was also, you know, found out of a dumpster.

And I fitted that into a plastic nursery pot with the, that had the bottom cut out.

And I kind of just buried that in the clay and then put a bunch of rocks on top of it to hide it.

That nursery pot actually holds the metal pipe in place.

The strip along my driveway was, it's one of the only spots my front yard that gets full sun.

I wanted to stick to a color palette because I knew I was doing really close planting.

So eventually, it's going to look pretty wild, which is what I wanted.

But I think the color palette, being white, yellow, purple and pink, I think that gives it, you know, a little bit more pattern and stability in that chaos of it being totally overgrown and crazy-looking.

It was here when I moved in that little rusted piece of fence, so I wanted to give the vine something pretty to climb up for me to look at instead of just bamboo stakes in the ground.

Well, I think my yard is changed my life just in the, just in the way that it's given me an amazing outlet that kind of combines working with my hands, which I like doing with being creative.

I think it's also just made me appreciate plants more in general and added a quality of life that I wouldn't have if all these beautiful plants were in here.

If it was just blank like it was before.

Just having something beautiful to look at when you walk outside, I think is really, really important.

And it does make a huge difference.

(gentle music) (gentle upbeat music)