“I wish it was three years from now.”
There are only two contexts I can think of when I’ve ever dared utter those “wish-your-life away” words:
- When I was fifteen.
- Whenever we make a change to the backyard.
I think Nature is one of God’s loveliest consolations for the passage of time.
Trees. Plants. Flowers. Landscaping. All SO much better with age.
Short term, there’s a lot happening in our back yard!
I’m looking at all the crazy work we just did, and while I usually prefer to enjoy “today,” I can’t help but look forward to what it will all look like “tomorrow” when it begins to mature.
Part of the reason for that is because things need time to fill in; part of it is because we recycle and replant things and they don’t look beautiful now, but should next year; and part is because the trees are young, and they’ll be so pretty when they have a few more years of maturity.
(I should be so lucky!)
Much of this year’s projects are still in progress…but I have to keep reminding myself that it’s a marathon, not a sprint.
I’ll show you where we’re at, but for some of it you’ll have to use a little imagination to see where we’re headed.
And, of course, I’ll keep updating, but if you can’t wait, I post more frequently via Instagram.
Let’s start here:
LEMONS TO LEMONADE
When we dig up the ground for whatever reason (sidewalk, patio, fire pit, chessboard), we’re left with a pile of junk: dirt clumps with grass stuck to it, brush, clay …roots.
But if you take all that junk, make a structured pile with it, and top it with good soil, it can eventually become a feature, similar to how our Pachysandra berm was formed:
It started out as a structured dirt berm to divert water away from the house…and took about four years before it turned into the area in the photo above.
Likewise, we made the two-tier wall area out of what was a giant overgrown dirt and debris pile deposited in our yard from our neighbor’s build:
Our yard was originally a flat bowling alley (not counting the neighbor’s construction pile) and we learned that those dirt piles can become the source of future features….
SO…
instead of hauling away the dirt from the sidewalk areas (or fire pit or chess garden, etc), we pile it in certain places that could use some oomph. And part of what we did this month is to start changing those piles of cra…uh, dirt, into what will eventually become landscape features.
Like here:
which this month we made into this:
It still needs a bit more dirt to finish it off, then ground cover. Although we haven’t decided what we’ll use here yet, three years from now, we’re hoping it will become a less cartoony version of this (yes, I’ll keep you posted):
In a back corner of the yard, MR. started this next pile with dirt from last year’s drainage ditch, trimmed the front with large stones, and topped it with more dirt from the sidewalk area that we added last fall.
This is where it started this spring (a trimmed out pile o’yuck):
We added four River Birches to the front, and will later add three smaller ones to the dirt berm in back.
We encircled the area with wallstone and filled it in with about three or four inches of stone “screenings” (kitty-litter-sized bits of stone like you find in park paths).
Here’s the current status (thank you for letting me edit out some distracting weeds and grass):
It still needs a hit of soil before the berm is topped/finished with ground cover, but it’s on its way to becoming a unique sitting area. When those young trees become as tall as these (which are right near the house)..
…we hope to see it eventually become a cool private, shady nook…a natural awning formed by lacy tree canopies…
We’ve also torn apart the pool “berm” (yep…our first dirt pile) yet again.
It has been through so many iterations, it deserves a post all its own.
Four years ago it was still a sunny spot with a few trees. I had planted a lot of perennials that I grew from seed (I was so proud of those yellow coreopsis), and mixed them with plenty of nursery plants and Easter leftovers:
It keeps evolving as the trees we planted and a single random raspberry plant staged a coup and completely overtook the whole area. We also lost the beautiful birch in what WAS the shady spot.
What was light became dark, and vice versa.
We’ve had to keep reinventing….as the lighting and available space have drastically changed.
This is where we were in early June:
YIKES! To be fair, at the time of this photo, none of the perennials had begun to bloom yet, and it hadn’t been weeded. I usually have it back in shape by the end of June when it starts blooming and I can weed through what is and isn’t a keeper”.
MR. suggested adding a second-tier wall, which does a great job of making my accidental raspberry patch look pretty darn intentional.
Then we added annuals underneath in what used to be the shady part.
Next year, I won’t have to wonder what is and isn’t supposed to be there, which means I can have it shaped up earlier in the season.
Then the right end of the pool berm looked SO much better than everything else, we decided to rip up the rest of it, reorganized everything by grouping perennials according to similarity and moved things throughout the yard to places where they would work best.
I also took apart the center of the stone wall and redid it, then added shade-tolerant annuals to the left side for color balance.
Which brings us to these:
Aren’t these mop headed blooms so lovely?
I have “Veruca Salted” these shrubs in other people’s yards for as long as I can remember.
But plant lust or not, the pool berm used to be too sunny, and soap or no soap, they would be munched to the ground anywhere else in the yard. Up to now, they couldn’t have worked in our yard.
NO, Veruca, no Hydrangea for you!
Fast forward. There’s now SO much shade on the berm it could actually happen…I can actually try…
White Annabelle Hydrangeas.
We went to a local nursery and bought some one and two-year old Annabelle bushes. They are now the feature plant in the center of the berm.
The berm looks pretty nice so far and I’m looking forward to seeing my perennials bloom in the shady section…. But…
three years from now, those Hydrangea! Wow! Can’t wait.
I have more yardstuff to share. But one of the things I’m learning about myself and blogging is that if I try to cram too much material in one post, it takes me a more than a month to actually post it.
Maybe, with more practice, I’ll get better at it…say, maybe three years from now.
Although I feel like a bad student commenting on a post from 2018 (not the beginning, nor the end of DADH) – but I couldn’t help following the links today…
WOW. THIS YARD LOOKS AMAZING. It’s clear you’re far more motivated and design-savvy concerning open spaces than I’ll EVER be. I love to look at yards like yours. LOVE. I suspected from other posts that you were Good At The Whole Yard Management Scene.
Which I now know is an understatement. This is not *good*. This is…olympic. Gold medal olympic! (I hear you disagreeing. But let’s get real. Ask the other humans what they think of your yard. They agree with me.)
More links await so, yay! VERY FUN TO SEE YOUR PROJECTS. I feel I’ve gotten something done when I read these posts. I imagine our acres landscaped just as masterfully. I live vicariously. I pretend it doesn’t make me feel guilty in the slightest that our yard will languish in obscurity while yours wins blue ribbons. But mostly, I enjoy taking it all in. A+ Em 🙂
Bad student? You’re more like the Fairy Godreader.
Mr gets most of the credit for design savvy. I get to frustrate him by amending and offering LOTS of “helpful” opinions. That’s the price of my brawny assistance.
Gardenwalks and open gardens are (normally) a huge part of summer in the Buffalo area. I loooove touring people’s yards. So many truly green thumbed and talented people. There are many cool ones to visit.
One summer in the future, it might be fun to sign up. But we’ll need way more flowering if that’s ever to happen.
(Thanks, of course, for reading and for your fun and really lovely comment! You do know you’re creating a monster right?)
I love the tiered gardens you put in. They’re beautiful. We undertook a huge backyard project a number of years ago. We used to have a sloped wooded back and we took out a lot of the trees and leveled out a big back yard area… and planted grass and gardens. It nearly killed us it was so much work, but we’re sooo happy that we have it now.
X, Julie | http://www.thismainlinelife.com
Hello, Julie! Thank you for visiting AND commenting!!!
I bet your yard looks beautiful. It is a ton of work, but always so worth it. Occasionally, we really do miss the bare ground path that we had cut in the back with all the naturalized area around it. THEN…yesterday we walked to the back to move our benches for the winter and recollected that we would never walk back there without the sidewalk. Too mucky. SO, lose a little, gain a little.
Visited your blog as well. First, love your design! Did you create that yourself or do you work with someone? Really professional! And second, I look forward to spending more time there getting to know you and your style. 🙂
Love the photo of the bench at twilight with the lights and “lacy tree canopies…”
What kind of trees are they?
Hello, Erika! Those are also River Birches. You can see what they look like as a young tree in the photo above that one. They have been a favorite of ours since we first saw them in a friend’s yard. Fast growing, love wet areas, and you’re right: a beautiful, lacy canopy. We’ve used them as the backdrop for many family photos.
Thanks for visiting and commenting!
Ditto what Jodie asked, was wondering how big your lot is!! I read your reply to her. I think our whole lot is is 300 ft. deep so you have quite the area to play in and pretty up. So impressed with your visions and patience and how you know what you want. I plant something, it dies, I plant something else, it dies. Vicious circle. There is nothing more rewarding than growing children and plants, well.
I am anxious to see how everything develops and comes to fruition. Love the shady sitting area you are creating. The lovely varieties of flowers and ground cover and larger plants. I do wish we could grow more than cactus sometimes.
Well done, Mr. and Mrs. Dust and Dog Hair, well done!
You have quite a generous lot too, Leslie! Our last house had a lot that was 125′ deep…so we definitely wanted a bigger playground 🙂 I also share in your experience with the vicious circle, but learned that’s part of the deal. I am exceptionally good at killing houseplants…but (and I don’t want to jinx myself) one I’ve had for a while has BUDS!!!!
Looks like you’ve been able to use your new pool. Hope that’s all working out for you and PC. We’ve sampled some of your temperatures this year…Yikes!! I bet you’re logging plenty of water miles!
Thanks for commenting…see you soon!
I just have to ask—do you live on an acre of land?? I can’t believe you keep showing us more and more yard and it’s all so incredible. That is why you don’t have time for blogging (and that’s a good thing), LOL!!
You have such a vision of how it will look—I’m terrible at that for the yard. I’m way better at it with the house (sometimes) and clothing (because it’s not as permanent, maybe?).
But it’s kinda like a body change…it definitely doesn’t happen overnight, and needs tons of time!!
Good thing you have helpers!!!
XOXO
Jodie
http://www.jtouchofstyle.com
Oh, the happy looks on those helpers’ faces. Hahahaha.
To borrow a fun feature from an admired blogger:
Interesting Tidbit: In one day, Tee logged 11 miles on his fitness tracker walking the loads of material back and forth with the skid steer. Good thing he’s a distance runner!
So, yes. The backyard is about 400 feet deep. When we first saw the lot, it was filled with tree-sized shrubs, quite a few mature trees, and lots of young scrub trees. After they cleared it, there were the two at the far back, a couple of scrubby ash trees in the middle, and a few along the property line. We were like: WHERE ARE THE TREES!!!! So, we just started out planting our own, which turned out to be a good thing since our area has been hit pretty hard by the ash borer.
Our “dirt pile neighbor” craved privacy as well, so we each let that side fill in with trees and shrubs. That’s, of course, the favorite side. Would’ve done the same on the other side, but we’re stuck with the fence. To each his own. : )
But it has been fun coming up with ways to enjoy it all. A lot of happy accidents where things just come together.
Fun being covered in dirt head-to-toe on a Saturday, and putting on a dress and heels for dinner that night…So keep those style tips coming!
Thanks, Jodie!