Finally, I'm ready to unveil the "final" product of my driveway labor! This was a high intensity, high involvement labor of love, sweat and pride. The pride was hiding for quite a while as I kinda cringed away every time a neighbor would drive by. It just looked like a crazy man's delusion. Concrete ruble, Then dirt..."O.K.," they probably thought, "he must be replacing a damaged driveway."

"Nope, is that? huh? wood chips?" They double-take as they would drive by. But I kept confident, kept digging, raking, leveling, dumping, driving, scooping, strapping, dumping, raking, cutting, placing, digging, planting...smiling.

The trees were beautiful by the way. It's so hard to find a nice Velvet Mesquite here in the Valley. If a nursery does happen to have some, they are usually crammed in behind the Chileans...neglected, broken, unknown. Desert Gardens to the rescue!!! I love those guys! Gotta plug them: {Cave creek Rd. north of the 101}

They had a row of wonderfully branched, out in the open, spaced Velvets. Showing themselves in their Native glory. Ok, sorry, back to the project.

Slowly but surely, the hard blah grey concrete was replaced with soft, fragrant, wonderfully strawberry brown and tan local and non-local tree leftovers. Their smell was thrown up at me every time I would pull into the spongy absorbent rectangle. "Ahhh, smells like North !" 

 

Next it was time to create the planting area just West of the car spots. This would be where those inspiring Mesquites would go, creating both aesthetics, food, habitat, Nitrogen and most importantly, shade! So I looked at the space remaining and wanted a kind of Mesquite Bosque (forest) planting there. So I grabbed a few Native plants to help support the soil fauna and beauty of the area. In goes the Jojoba (a great companion of the hillside Mesquites). Also included are a Chuparosa, Baja fairyduster (I know, not really Native to AZ but native to the Sonoran), Blackfoot Daisy for groundcover and a Wolfberry (another companion in nature).
Sweet! So now I will just support them for the first year or so...then their off on their own! Ready to catch any extra precipitation in their new sunken planting bed.

In conclusion (?) I now have abounding PRIDE in what my passerby's see as they drive along to work or play. I now know that they see something beautiful, if not practical, with their passing glances. Someday, maybe someone will pass by and call me over to explain why I did it. I will smile, stroll over, and share thoughts feelings and larger ideals. I will...wait...hey, there's two people walking their dog and pointing at the driveway..............