Front Landscaping

It's been a busy year for me professionally. I received a promotion in the summer of '09 which greatly increased the number of hours I work and consequently put a damper on projects around the house (as well as my blogging).
One of the things at the top of the list this year was to landscape the front of the house. I knew that I wouldn't have the time to do this job myself, consequently we wound up hiring a contractor to put in a walkway and retaining wall.
I gave the contractor some artistic license to define the shape of the walk, which is about 70' long. We gave him less license on the shape of the retaining wall, but he took some there too. . .
Once the hardscaping was done, we took over to create the flower beds. A portion of our septic system is right in the front yard, therefore the flower beds were designed to cover up all but one of system's various covers.
We then hit the nursery sales and got some great deals on plants and shrubs due to the fall closeout sales. With the plants in, mulching was next. Due to 20 cubic yards of mulch required, I rented a Bob-cat to spread the mulch around. My back was happy I did.

The landscape supply house had some great straw netting which is really helping our grass get established.