Side Yard
There’s a skinny section of our yard sandwiched between our house and the neighbor’s yard. It’s not suited particularly well for anything other than a single outdoor bowling lane. Outdoor bowling… hm, is that a thing?
Anyway.
When we bought the house, this side yard was an awkward mix of garden, compost bin, rotting wood and overgrown weeds. It needed attention, but we weren’t sure what kind.
First and foremost, the fence separating our side yard bowling lane from the neighbor’s yard was leaning horribly. Ben dug up the adjacent garden and compost bin and re-concreted six posts. If that doesn’t win a gold medal for home ownership, I’m not sure what does.
After the fence was straightened, Ben wanted to stain it. It was three mismatched colors already and after a few weekends with paint brush in hand we got it to match the dark brown of our deck.
Then the side yard project got abandoned for a while…
GMAT studying, triathlon training and a trip to Europe happened. In the meantime the side yard went from disorganized to disaster. The garden Ben had dug up sat like a mountain and weeds up to my knees sprouted everywhere.
I have no picture to commemorate this. It was so bad.
I spent some time teetering between ignoring it all together and calling landscape companies to get quotes for having a professional team come deal with it. After several unreasonably high quotes and many realistic conversations later we agreed on a plan to do it ourselves.
Last weekend Ben got to work.
He dug out the entire side yard. The. Entire. Side. Yard. It took a full day and filled five huge 8ft x 4ft x 1ft garbage pans with dirt, rotted wood, weeds and cement pieces. And now we have a beautiful blank slate.
I kind of want to send a finished “HAH! Take THAT!” pictures to the landscape guy who said he’d need to take out a panel of our fence to do any work (lol, no).
We conjured up all sorts of dreams for this weird space but finally landed on what feels most reasonable for cost, effort and upkeep. My garden will go back near the fence, the bed of gravel (good for drainage) running along the house will be straightened, we’ll add paved stepping stones down the length and plant a low maintenance no-mow ground cover to fill in the rest.
Can't picture it? Allow me to help:
The hardest of the work is done. Next Ben will finish my garden and straighten the existing gravel area. After that we’ll place the pavers and plant the ground cover—both of which we already have.
How the two of us moved 22 heavy pavers and 75 edging bricks by ourselves from Lowe’s to the trunks of our cars and out to the side yard in the middle of the August heat is a story for another day.
I have a feeling before fall arrives I won’t mind looking out the window into the side yard anymore. Perhaps I’ll even have time to plant a little late harvest.
Anyway.
When we bought the house, this side yard was an awkward mix of garden, compost bin, rotting wood and overgrown weeds. It needed attention, but we weren’t sure what kind.
First and foremost, the fence separating our side yard bowling lane from the neighbor’s yard was leaning horribly. Ben dug up the adjacent garden and compost bin and re-concreted six posts. If that doesn’t win a gold medal for home ownership, I’m not sure what does.
After the fence was straightened, Ben wanted to stain it. It was three mismatched colors already and after a few weekends with paint brush in hand we got it to match the dark brown of our deck.
GMAT studying, triathlon training and a trip to Europe happened. In the meantime the side yard went from disorganized to disaster. The garden Ben had dug up sat like a mountain and weeds up to my knees sprouted everywhere.
I have no picture to commemorate this. It was so bad.
I spent some time teetering between ignoring it all together and calling landscape companies to get quotes for having a professional team come deal with it. After several unreasonably high quotes and many realistic conversations later we agreed on a plan to do it ourselves.
Last weekend Ben got to work.
He dug out the entire side yard. The. Entire. Side. Yard. It took a full day and filled five huge 8ft x 4ft x 1ft garbage pans with dirt, rotted wood, weeds and cement pieces. And now we have a beautiful blank slate.
I kind of want to send a finished “HAH! Take THAT!” pictures to the landscape guy who said he’d need to take out a panel of our fence to do any work (lol, no).
We conjured up all sorts of dreams for this weird space but finally landed on what feels most reasonable for cost, effort and upkeep. My garden will go back near the fence, the bed of gravel (good for drainage) running along the house will be straightened, we’ll add paved stepping stones down the length and plant a low maintenance no-mow ground cover to fill in the rest.
Can't picture it? Allow me to help:
The hardest of the work is done. Next Ben will finish my garden and straighten the existing gravel area. After that we’ll place the pavers and plant the ground cover—both of which we already have.
How the two of us moved 22 heavy pavers and 75 edging bricks by ourselves from Lowe’s to the trunks of our cars and out to the side yard in the middle of the August heat is a story for another day.
I have a feeling before fall arrives I won’t mind looking out the window into the side yard anymore. Perhaps I’ll even have time to plant a little late harvest.