11220 Midbury

Mike, Isabel and Haley Escobar

The 2012 winner of December Yard of the Month decorations and a $100. gift certificate is the Escobar family. This year there were so many yards in the neighborhood that did a great job of decorating with holiday lights. However, the Escobars went all out and made a wonderful festive arrangement that truly captured the spirit of holiday decorating! Congratulations on such a great job, and thank you for making our neighborhood shine!

Congratulations to the Lehman’s for winning November Yard of the Month! Using Texas natives and well-adapted plants, this yard has been sculpted to include a wonderful Certified Wildlife Habitat area for wildlife feeding and nesting. To be certified, a wildscape needs to provide four elements – water, food, a place to hide from predators, and a place to raise offspring. A wildscape like this saves water, reduces maintenance time, supports the environment and looks good for the neighborhood. If you would like to modify your yard in this way, visit National Wildlife Federation at www.nwf.org to find out more. Great job!

Every year this resident does a spectacular job of providing a visual spooky treat for the neighborhood and particularly for the kids. And it seems there’s always something new to look for. This year was no exception. Enjoy the prize gift card and congratulations on winning October Yard of the Month for Halloween decorations! We wonder what next year will bring.

Kiska Shull & Linda Mancias

1927 Ravenscroft

Coming into Hillcrest on Ravenscroft, one sees a number of homes that showoff our neighborhood in a way that makes us take notice. This residence is one that shouts out “Hillcrest is a great place to live!” A well-kept lawn and flowerbeds under properly pruned oaks, create elegant and comfortable curb appeal. Congratulations on winning Yard of the Month! We all benefit from your efforts because your hard work makes our neighborhood a better place to live. Thanks.

Salvador Villegas

2549 Lavendale Ct

A lot of effort and care has been spent to create this beautiful front lawn. It’s undergone a tremendous transformation. A large portion of the St. Augustine grass has been removed to create an elegant crushed granite walk surrounding a garden near the house. Manicured grass has been left on the inside of the sidewalk accentuating the shape of the lot. Outside the sidewalk near the curb, more crushed granite supports a long line of drought resistant plants.

Larry and Shirley Corbin-Trujillo

11312 Blairview

Responding to the ongoing draught and the incredible heat of 2011 which devastated so many lawns, the residents have scaled back on the amount of St. Augustine grass and brought in crushed granite to create elegant bordering.

Using rock, cactus and native grasses, this yard will use much less water in the coming months and looks great. It was a lot of work that benefits all of Hillcrest. Thanks for your efforts and congratulations of winning Yard of the Month!

There’s a lot of green to enjoy in this front yard. Everything here is healthy and trimmed and well cared for. You can see, it doesn’t take a lot of flowering plants to create great curb-appeal – a well-maintained lawn, a couple of beautiful trees, and a few shaped bushes define the entryway.

This attractive yard is understated and simple. It illustrates how well a modest

design with only a few select elements can be utilized to create an eye-catching

yard. The lawn and tree are well maintained, and the simple accents of flowers

beneath the tree canopy and in the small garden along the walk add just the

right amount of color. Simple, clean and beautiful produce great curb appeal.

While delivering last month’s Yard of the Month award, I noticed that there was some significant landscaping being done just across the street. I told myself that I needed to keep my eye on this project for the future. I was glad I did!

The entire front yard has been “made-over” in a unique, fanciful, and drought-resistant manner. Here, the typically difficult front strip between the sidewalk and the street has been lined with white rock and Gulf Muhly. The lawn has been shaped with edging to create swirls of buffalo grass and rock. Along the front of the house is a very nice cactus garden. You really can’t see it too well in the photo. You should take a walk down Desco and check it out!

This yard is a nice example of how to move away from the traditional water-guzzling St. Augustine covered lawns by incorporating other materials. Adding permeable rockscape and mulch features to a large percentage of the front yard, can reduce water costs significantly. In addition, the curb appeal of the house is enhanced by the sweeping shapes of the variety of textures of rock, mulch and the remaining grass. Congratulations on winning February Yard of the Month!

This is a very clean yard, nicely maintained and easy to look at. The trees and shrubs are trimmed well and are healthy. The grass is doing very nicely and the yard is without weeds. Good curb appeal. Congratulations and thanks for your successful efforts in making a positive contribution to our neighborhood!