Empty Alley

What would you do with this empty corner? This is a small utility alley on the right side of our house, facing the street. The fuse box is on the wall behind the big green shrubs. It's the north side, with little sun, and no windows.

The neighbor's house is to the right, ours is the wall on the left. These pictures are all from summer when we first moved in.

There is a rock drainage path, edged with spiky dasylirion hesperaloe plants. The rock bed begins, abruptly, at the edge of a square of salmon pink colored gravel. The fence that encloses the pink gravel area has no gate, no entrance into the back yard. It's just a fenced in, closed square space.

I like all the elements -- rock creek beds, color contrast gravel, coyote fence enclosure, spacious area, all visible in the front to the street -- it could be a nicely landscaped garden area. But standing on the sidewalk, looking at the front of the house, the right side just sort of disappears into shadows.

Because it is around the side of the house and there is no access to the back yard through the fence, it's not an area I ever go into and I can't easily get the hose there, so I would never water any plants in that corner.

And it's the north side, fenced in and also bounded by tall house walls on both sides. It just isn't an area for a garden. So it has remained an empty corner.

But it wants something there.