My front yard changing, a baby brontosaurus and books

Here is a cute baby brontosaurus, or that is what I imagine him to be. He is in the playground at the community center where my once a month book discussion group meets. We meet in the building, not in the playground. I have attended three times, the group is open to anyone (they let me in, ha ha), and it has been led by the same lady for about 15 years.

This view shows the mural behind him.

The book we are reading in June in our discussion group is Moloka'i by Alan Brennert, which was written in 2004. I see he wrote a book Daughter of Moloka'i in 2014. A seven year old has a red sore on her face and is sent away from her family to the leper colony on Moloka'i in Hawaii. I have started reading it, the subject of a child taken from her home and enduring leprosy is a rough thing to read about. I don't know if I will finish it, I am trying to.

The book we read in May was Atonement by Ian McEwan. I loved this book and in the group discussion I said that the ending raised it to genius level, where the author through a character talks about the power of a novelist to give his readers a happy ending or a bitter ending, plus of course create an entire story and cast of people. Read the book to find out about the man unjustly imprisoned, the love of his life, and a troubled 13 year old who lied to convict him. How could she ever atone? Quite a few people in the discussion group liked the book but did NOT like the ending. It was not a simple or straight forward ending and was disturbing to me, but still, I thought it was genius for originality and writing skill.

My front yard has been a mess this past week as it is transformed into a thing of beauty, sort of like us sometimes, and like the Velveteen Rabbit. Everything is coming together.

This above photo is from June 6 2019. See all (some) of my new plants? About 50 actually.
The flagstone is Arizona Flagstone.

Above is me on June 5 2019 before the wood chips were added around the plants.
Below is photo I took on June 7 showing the trellis taking shape.

P.S. Work was completed on the trellis, flagstone patio and plantings on June 11, so I will post soon with photos of the completed work. Shall I leave the redwood trellis as is, or paint it or stain it? I am thinking of staining it a "faded barn red" to match the front of the house. What is best?