Back Yard Master Plan

This is our back yard. The property lines are about 2 inches away from the barn shaped house at the back and the white house to the right of us. Literally.

It's a decent size. Long and narrow. But it needs some serious love and attention before it looks anywhere close to being nice. Since we want it to be a safe place for little kids to play, it needs to be enclosed. And it desperately, desperately needs a garden with lots and lots of flowers. I might have a tendency to kill indoor plants due to neglect (except for your plant, Sarah. It's alive and kicking!), but I am much more adept with outdoor plants. Rain is helpful that way. Besides, I used to help my mom put in outdoor gardens, so I have some idea of what I'm doing.

There is a gravel drive which splits the yard in two. I hate it. It just doesn't work for me aesthetically and since we are going to enclose the yard, I want it gone. Time to break out the shovel. Should be fun, right?

We're also going to pull up the laundry line T's. We don't use them and I don't like where they are placed in the yard. If I were to set up laundry lines, it would be in a more hidden location. Like back by the laundry room door on the other side of the house. But for now, we're just going to pull them up.

Our main parking area is a gravel drive along the side of the house. We don't have a garage.

There are also two public parking spots in front of the house and plenty of public parking spots up and down the street. We are contemplating putting a gravel drive in right next to the back of the house, but I'm not sure about it. I don't mind our street side parking and I have major reservations about cutting into the yard with yet another gravel lot. 

We are going to put in a short white picket fence at the top of the little slope along the street side of the yard all the way to the back of that barn house.

There will be tulips in front of the fence for now and maybe someday a raised garden behind a low stone wall bordering the street. With lots of flowers and plants flowing over the side. I like my gardens to be overflowing with life.

As for the rest of the yard boundaries, we are going to put in a hedge. Fencing is expensive. If we do everything ourselves, it would cost us about $2000 to completely fence in the yard. We definitely don't have that kind of money. A hedge, on the other hand, makes for a nice privacy screen and is going to cost us $120. It will take 4 or 5 years to fill in, but that's ok. We aren't going anywhere.

We'll run the hedge in an "L" shape along the back and side of the property. It should somewhat obscure the view of our neighbor's houses and parking area. Something like this:

And I'll probably have a garden in front of the hedge. Lots of open running & playing space in the middle of the yard. Maybe a play set.

On the back corner of the property lot (where that table & chairs are sitting) is a large concrete pad that is probably the future home of a garden shed. For now, we are using the peeling smoke shed with it's chimney as a garden shed. We aren't sure what we are going to do with the smoke shed. Will it stay? Will it go? Will we put a door in facing the street?? Not sure yet.

So, that's the plan. I think the yard will look vastly improved once we are done with it and the hedge is truly a hedge and not some dinky little shrubs. We've actually already started on implementing some of these plans. I'll keep you posted!