Hello All!

Long-time reader, first time poster. First and foremost PLEASE forgive the state of my lawn. That's exactly why I'm here. When we bought our house in Dallas (zone 8) 3 years ago it had a beautiful St. Augustine lawn that promptly died when we were hit with a severe drought. With no irrigation system, it was impossible to keep it alive. That being said, we've been gimping along with annual rye since then and are now ready to commit to new landscaping!

But here's the snag. The lawn is off-center from the front door with no focal point. Visitors have to come up the driveway to enter the house, so I was thinking maybe it would be nice to introduce a sort of decomposed granite courtyard near the garage wall with a meandering path leading to an entry from the sidewalk to add some visual interest and an alternative path to the front door. I'm having trouble finding pictures of such a thing and I'm hoping it's not too weird. I've seen people fence in their entire yard, but not like... half. I'm attaching some pics to help tell the story.

I am also open to 100% NEW ideas. We need drought tolerant plants that can withstand a freeze and we are installing irrigation. Our home was built in 1960 and we love anything in the MCM aesthetic which seems to bode well for desert plants. Maybe a water feature, too?

P.S. The tree is staying. It's simply too big to remove.