I planted lavender in the back corner of our yard this season, in a spot that gets full sun through most of the day with a little shade in the early morning and late afternoon. It’s one of the brighter, more open areas of our yard, and it felt like the right place to start building something simple and sustainable.

I paired it with rosemary because they naturally work well together — both thrive in sunlight, don’t need a lot of water once established, and do best in well-drained soil. For this space, I wanted plants that could handle the heat and still be low-maintenance enough to keep up with.

This corner also opens up to the desert behind us, and we used to get quite a few bunnies coming through. As much as I enjoyed seeing them, they made it difficult to grow anything consistently. Rosemary has been helpful in keeping them from coming too close, which makes this area feel a little more manageable.

I’m also planning to turn the nearby cement slab into a small seating area, and eventually refresh the old garden bed with new soil and the seedlings we started earlier this week. The goal is to create a space that’s both functional and peaceful — somewhere that grows well without needing constant attention, and that we can actually enjoy spending time in.