Over the first few years in the house I made some improvements that began to change some of the features in the yard. The first big change to the yard was the relocation of the condensing unit for the air-conditioning that sat in the corner of the yard outside the kitchen. I added a wood fence around the yard and a deck behind the kitchen at the back door.
The new deck before the stain was put on.
The freshly enclosed back yard with the unruly clump of Orange Day Lilies in the back and overgrown Forsythia to the left.
Once those elements were in place I was able to start defining the layout of the planting beds. As an architect, I've been frustrated that the layout of the house hasn't been inviting to fun curves so I decided to let the garden be the fun area and embraced curviness when laying out the planting beds. The best technique I found for doing this was to drape the garden hose around the yard and drag it into a pleasing shape. Once I had it where I wanted it, I used surveyor's chalk to mark the line. Pulling that sod out was a major chore! The results were better than I expected...
A composite photo of the back yard. As far as plants go, we had no idea what we were doing at that time. We had gone to Lowes and picked whatever looked fun. The bulk of our work was in cutting sod and laying the walkways and brick borders. We salvaged the bricks from a walkway that was covered by the new deck. The pavers are just 16" square concrete pavers. Once the bricks were finished and the mulch was spread, we finally had something to start working with...
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