Dymondia is quite comfortable on the feet but isn't terribly wear resistant. Small children with bare feet? It will probably be okay. Once you bring shoes into the mix, all bets are off. Unfortunately, with flowers come bees and therefore shoes are probably necessary at least some of the time. I can't comment on the clover. Ryan

OMG . . . I'm on Pinterest?!? I had no idea! Yes, it's my house. Here's a few more pics of my front portal. I designed, landscaped (I'm a master gardener) and decorated it myself. To the left of our front door: Further down still on the left: One side of my terraced beds leading up to my front portal, although there wasn't a lot blooming when I took this pic: I've planted a LOT of Russian Sage and Catmint, as they don't take much water and thrive with our sun and soil. These lights are from San Miguel De Allende, down in Mexico. And, right in front of our main seating I've created this little focal spot. The birds love it . . . and so do my furkids. The tiny arroyo (river rock dry stream bed) actually is a working one and carries the run-off rain from the roof down to the trees and lower beds. I don't know if you can see them very well, but 2 other plants that do wonderfully here are the Gaillardia (Indian Blanketflower) and pretty much every varietal of Agastache (Giant Hyssop) :

Nil - Your H. retusa 'Carl Grover' is pretty neat. I have few Haworthia glossy leaves like that. How big is it? Looks like a nice size pot. Good choice with the H. 'abouykuu'. It's one of my favourite plants: Howard - Are those four all different hybrids? The middle two do look very similar. I remember that springboks grow slowly? May be a while before the differences become evident. Here are my two slowest Haworthia. If any of you have them as well, I'm curious to see if they are slow for you too. Haworthia truncata 'Maruko' Haworthia 'kegani' x 'korizato'

When it comes to permits, every city, town, or whatever here in the San Francisco Bay Area seems to have its own amount of time required to get permits, etc. -- some, like my city, work pretty fast and others proceed at glacial paces (I think maybe that's what aem04 was referring to, darbuka). Here in Livermore, I would just call up our planning department and ask -- they are very public-friendly and seem to like chatting about projects -- but your GC and engineer (knocking out a load-bearing wall and putting in a "beam or two" may very well require one of those signing off on it) should have some idea about time required, too. I would certainly get started finding out about that now, if you want to start in mid-Feb. -- sounds tight, even if all parties involved are ready to roll.