We've definitely killed a lot of plants as well in order to get to this point.

And it's part of that process.

It's part of that journey that we've kind of both been on, learning about our particular space and what works here.

[cheerful music] Im James Barela.

Im Ray Delgadillo.

And five years ago we built this garden from scratch.

At the time we were really interested in English cottage gardens and so we wanted something very peaceful.

My day job is being a product designer.

James is a freelance designer and those hes a so hes a working artist.

And so I think we approach gardening as a creative outlet.

So the first thing we did to the backyard was to install a retaining wall.

That was the very first thing we wanted to do because it was so foundational to the entire garden.

I decided to build a deck out of Trex to keep it very low maintenance.

It's a composite material.

It's half wood half plastic.

And so it's supposed to last up to 25 years without any maintenance.

So we built the raised beds with the same material as well.

So hopefully theyll last several years.

The other option was cedar, but we had some friends that had some extra Trex, so that's kind of how we started the whole process.

The material for our retaining wall is a concrete product.

We started to learn a lot about retaining walls.

They came with a spec guide for different types of soil and how to build a foundation and build a drainage behind it.

And so they lock with fiberglass pins.

It's a dry stack so they can drain.

There's about ten cubic feet of stone behind the wall, which is pretty crazy.

Yeah, actually, cubic yards.

The construction of the of the wall took about six months of weekends for us.

But it was a wonderful challenge that I think both of us really were really proud of.

And we really wanted to accomplish this.

It was so much work, but it was fun in the end.

We had a lot of that extra loam that we created when we're building the wall, so we were kind of loading it up in different parts of the yard.

It was a very, very rich.

It was almost like black soil.

And at that point, once all the sod decomposed, so we used that, mixed it with native soil and then we added compost w dirt and some topsoil.

A lot of our garden, we started from seed and then all by things they just naturally interests either the flower color or the structure.

We'll often collect seed one year and then we'll basically use all that seed for the next planting.

Sometimes we've also taken cuttings from a plant that we really like and really kind of save those cuttings, make sure you bring them inside during the winter.

So for privacy, because this was a blank slate out here, we had to think about that.

And we originally started with clumping bamboo.

Unfortunately, with the past couple of years, it was really, really stressful for the clumping bamboo.

I think at this point we're going to replace them with something different.

Well, I think one of the most challenging things about this property is how exposed it is.

We're on a hillside, and so any time there's a windstorm, it feels so much more intense than anywhere else than we have lived.

So we wanted to address not only the privacy but the wind.

We did get a couple of magnolias.

This variety is called D.D.

Blanchard, and it's supposed to be a lot more vertical.

We've also tried Scarlets Peak hollies, which are really, really wonderful.

And we also have a nice peach tree.

And try to create sort of rooms and divide the space a lot more because it just becomes a lot more manageable.

I think we've also used color to help tie the garden together.

We wanted there to be a lot of color around this patio because we were going to be able to see it from the inside of the house as well.

And then we do spend a lot of time on this deck.

In this garden we have standing cypress.

We have cosmos, columbine, Rudbeckia maxima.

There's a couple of scabiosas, the ones that I saved over from fall as cuttings and then brought them back into this bed and more columbine, because I really love columbine.

And I think all of this bed was come from seed or cat.

We'll kind of just watched through the window and birds will come visit the little fountain right there, the little water garden.

Our cat will just watch it and, you know, just kind of be enjoying the little butterflies in the area.

This border behind us is actually it doesn't get any irrigation.

We water by hand every once in a while in the summer.

We started by picking plants that were just really tough, nepeta or catmint, roses.

A lot of people think roses are not drought tolerant, but they've been really good for us, especially English roses.

A salvia salvia Blue Victory has done amazing in this garden and there's so many varieties of salvia.

We probably have six or seven in the garden.

Angelonias, Russian sage.

There's tons of butterflies that visit this area and we have bees, all different types of bees.

We have native bees that come by.

The garden gets full of anoles.

We have Texas Horned Lizards as well.

Just a lot of wildlife that I think wouldn't necessarily be here if it wasn't for all these places for them to kind of interact with and for pollinators to come by.

We're trying to also do a lot of like succession planting.

So when something is finished blooming, we want to make sure that there's something behind it that's going to refresh that when that plant is done.

So a few years ago I started with ceramics and I really wanted to create my own containers for my plants.

Since then, I've actually become really inspired, you know, during this process of building this new garden.

And now I start seeing some of the forms and in some of my plants, you know, influencing the way that I work.

And the process of gardening is very much similar to the process of ceramics, and they're both very meditative and they're both creative.

And you kind of have those moments where you lose track of time.

My work is sitting on the computer all day and so gardening complements kind of my creative side by allowing me to do something meditative that takes me away from the computer and allows me to just get lost into some something that is also created in the very front.

We have what we've called the Devil Strip.

Some areas call it different names, but I really love the name Devil Strip because it is like a devil to plant.

They're constantly dry.

So you really have to choose plants that can handle the radiant heat from the from the concrete.

And and there's also no irrigation in that area.

In the other garden next to it, we have, you know, coreopsis.

sea holly, we've used Brazos penstemon or gulf penstemon, which has been really reliable.

We also have some of the Rudeckia maximas in the front there.

Overall, I think we both really like informal plantings, but you also have to be aware that they can look a little wild.

And so we like to insert elements of thoughtfulness to, to kind of clean it up and make it sharp and have some elements that are sharp.

In the center of of one of the beds, we also have a smoke brush In the center of of one of the beds, we also have a smoke brush ‘Royal Purple, and that's kind of like the big anchor in this in that area where everything kind of circles around that.

We really want to bring in some just like interesting textures and variety to the area.

We try to emulate nature as much as we can, which is actually really difficult.

We're next to a really busy road.

It's Western facing and so it gets the really hot afternoon sun.

It also has no irrigation, but we do water it every once in a while in the summer.

But we wanted to choose natives that are really tough, so we have big muhly, we have Indigo Spires salvia, we have Salvia greggii, which always that one does well all across the garden.

We also planted a few Mexican feather grasses a few years ago and they've been slowly spreading into kind of a carpet effect.

We also have rudbeckia.

I personally think of gardening as kind of like painting with plants, and you have to think about the seasons and how they change and how the colors evolved.

It's kind of just been this nice thing for us to kind of explore together.

We're both very curious people, so we kind of both latched on to this relatively quickly and I think it's been a just a really nice journey for both of us to kind of go on.