Last fall, I was pretty clueless about what I should do with our backyard. We’ve slowly been clearing out years of neglect and I think we’re finally ready to start building things back up again. I still am a little unsure of the details, but I’ve become more comfortable with the thought of tackling such a big project.
Initially, I didn’t know where to start. The whole job just seemed really overwhelming and foreign. This is our first house and although I’ve planted many things before, I’ve never been given such a big blank slate (64 feet from the back of the house to the fence, and 51 feet wide from chain link to chain link).
We don’t need a hyper-landscaped showpiece of a backyard; I just don’t want it to look quite so neglected and embarrassing.
Then something clicked in my brain and I started thinking of the yard in a different way. First, I accepted the fact that it wasn’t going to all get done in one season or one year. Maybe not even two or three years. For a number of reasons (time, money, sanity), we can’t do it all at once.
And I started thinking about landscaping in familiar ways. I don’t need to find new plants; I can start filling the space by dividing perennials we have in the front of our house and planting those. I could even add “fun” non-living elements, like a bench or sculpture. For some reason, that made the project seem more attractive in my mind.
While I’m still a little foggy on the details, I do know a few things.
- I want the main yard space to remain relatively open.
- I’ve decided to work with my natural, semi-woodsy backyard instead of against it. I’m not going to try to tame it or make it into something perfectly manicured.
- Everything has to be low maintenance and drought tolerant. I am not a gardener. I enjoy planting, but pulling weeds or watering? Forget it. I’d rather be working on something else.
- I don’t want to spend a lot of money. Luckily many of the improvements won’t cost a thing but our time, like removing the old wire fence (more on that later this week), taking out the stumps and transplanting some perennials.
So that’s the (very loose) plan. I’m still totally open to suggestions, though. Please let me know if you have any advice to share!
