Oct 19th, 2009 8:34pm

I have had an ongoing battle with my backyard for several years now.  Each side has claimed victory at various times, but overall I was definitely loosing the war.  Fortunately my friend Jon is a landscape designer and with a lot of help and a good dose of cash I think I can finally say mission accomplished.

My hatred for this yard didn't begin right away.  It took several months of pulling out overgrown plants, a plague of beetles and a relentless battle with ants for control of my grass before I really began to seethe.  It was the bougainvilleas that really did me in though.  These devil plants grow like mad without food or water, are covered in sharp spines that can go through a tennis shoe and shed paper like flowers constantly that gather in every crevice of a yard.  Basically they are the most horrible plant ever conceived.

The yard was originally very green but over the last few years as I slowly killed off more and more of it, brown became the color of the day and it finally turned into just a big dust-bowl.  I've basically avoided opening my backdoor for the last year since I've been prepping for Jon's crew to come in and resurrect color in my yard.  I'm happy to say though that the dark days are over and I've been lounging around my backyard for the last week enjoying the huge new patio and the distinct lack of dirt or dead grass.  Check out the pics to see the transformation and I'll post some pics of the furniture as well as soon as I get a chance.