THE NEW PARADISE

The landscaping, or lack of landscaping has bothered Steve and I for a long time.  It was more upsetting to me than Steve so it had to go.  In The Villages they use "pine straw" like we would use bark up in Wisconsin.  The pine straw is all puffy when they lay it which pretty much covers the plants that are there.  After a bit of time the pine straw packs down and it looks like dead grass.  Very frankly, dirt would look better.   I'd had enough of this "ugly" so we called a friend of ours and she referred to us to a local man who came to give us a quote.   The quote just about caused a heart atack and was much more than I planned or hoped to spend but we did it anyway.

The plan called for some queen palms which we planted at our old house near Disney World.  In about a year they were quite large so we figured we'd plant them again.  We wanted the current plants relocated and I love Florida grasses so we went with that. 

One day we took our golf cart up to Spanish Springs for service and when we came home we were "stunned".  There were three queen palms in our front yard, one in front of the garage door and two on the other side of the sidewalk leading to the side gate.  They are positioned in such a way that they form an arch over the sidewalk.  Thre trees are so huge that they tower over the house and the wall that surrounds the house.   We were very pleased.  He came back to get his next payment and told us the job would be done by the end of last week.  WRONG.  I called the lady who referred us and she called him and said that if he didn't get back she would stop referring him.  Low and behold, they came to finish., putting in 15 different grasses, they moved the current plants all around and then put in stone. 

The stone we selected was done to match our neighbor John's house.  Then we switched to a lighter stone by the wall (which was cheaper).  They finished today and we were very pleased.  I now want to do the courtyard but a little at a time.   The only thing now done is the planting of my decorative cabbage plants.  I just love them. 

Here is the finished producut.