Yardcat - I am SO excited for you. You might remember I did a heck-of-a-lot of construction on my house (ok, I didn't do it, the contractor did) earlier this year. I wanted to get some work done on my backyard, but there just weren't the funds for that (fixing the dry rot took all the $$$). I can't wait to watch the progress and get ideas for myself.

Deb

How exciting! I am almost done with my front yard projects for this year, and am planning to tackle the backyard next. Wish I could afford the patio, but maybe next year. I was out for dinner tonight with a friend of mine who is a landscape architect. I casually mentioned to him some design ideas I'm playing with for the back yard. In about 2 minutes, he sketched out an entire plan for me on a napkin. I said, "you've already been thinking about this, haven't you?" LOL. I guess he was just waiting for me to ask.

Good luck with all your plans.

I think they're starting today!!! Although, we're already having setbacks...DH has decided that he wants to bury the power line while they have the backyard dug up, so who knows how long that will take. I was hoping that it would all be done while I'm out of town next week, and then it would be like one of those makeover shows, but I've since become more realistic.

So yardkat, how's it goin'? Have they started?
Jennifer

They did start, but I was out of town. They excavated
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and now it's a blank slate!
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They've also put the crushed limestone down behind the garage (for parking the truck) and dug for the sprinkler system so now we have little black snakes sticking up all over the place. I think today they're bringing in topsoil! Also, I think the concrete guy is stopping by today to discuss the stamped concrete options. I'm leaving again on Wednesday and will be gone until Monday, and I'm hoping they'll be mostly done by then, but probably not. Oh well...

Also, in my absence they decided that where I should put my compost bins will be on top of the crushed limestone. I'm so annoyed about that! I don't want it on top of limestone, I want it where I can get wormies in it! Phooey!

Starting to be able to see the outline of the beds now. Also, we decided to take out one raised veggie bed and in it's place my compost bins will live there, so they will be behing the garden on the ground.

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I'm glad the bins will be in a better place. I love the updates (please keep them up!)

OK, I've been out of town for almost a week, so here's some more progress pictures. The patio is in now, but I don't have a picture of that yet.

Trees! We have trees! That was an exiting day.
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Grass! Wow! We have grass! It's a low water slow growing kind of grass, I forget what it's called, something along the lines of "tuff turf." The blades are pretty thick, and I hope it holds up to our low water lifestyle. Although since it's new, DH is watering twice a day. I hope he grows out of that!
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Here we have the raised garden bed boxes that DH made out of redwood. I was supposed to help, but by the time the construction happened I wasn't available.
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And another view.
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Today they're putting in the concrete edging around the lawn, and I don't know what else, but they're basically done. I even planted seeds in the boxes last night, hopefully they'll germinate, because it might be a bit late.

Hope the beds are far enough apart to kneel between them. Boy is that a pain when you get it wrong!

The tuff turf will be a mix of a drought-tolerant KBG and hard fescues. I think there is perennial rye in there too, but that won't last long without water! Looks pretty good so far.

Quite an impressive change. It looks very nice, you must be pretty stoked.

The sod is "Dura-turf", don't know what's in it, it's supposed to be very drought tolerant. We'll see. otherwise it's so little a patch of grass that it shouldn't take much to water it pretty thoroughly.

The beds are three feet apart, I think it will be plenty of room until the pumpkins start to grow. ;)

Yardcat - Is your house the blue one or the gray one? I really like the blue color with the green grass. It looks really peaceful out there already. Makes me jealous about my own backyard. Please keep posting photos - I love them.

Deb

Our house is the tan thing, I hate our siding. The blue thing is our garage, believe it or not! We had a little tiny garage that barely fit one car, so we went overboard and built a really big garage, which has actually been great for storage since there isn't much in our house. And, well, it wasn't supposed to be blue, but they were out of the sage green paint that I liked, and this blue was a little brighter than on the color chart. Oh well...it makes it easy for people to find our house.

Here's a picture of the patio. Unfortunately, it pooled water right by the house so they had to rip part of it out and they're repouring it today. But here's what it looked like anyway...
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Wow! What a transformation! It's looking really good you must be very pleased!

I have to agree with wavesmom - I *love* the blue of your garage! I notice that all the houses around are a beige colour. Personally if there is no restriction on the colour you can paint your house, I'd paint the house blue too! :)

Thanks for putting the photos up it's been great to see the transformation in progress.

Alcina

Your killin' me here. All that in a couple of weeks! I've been here 5 years and am not even close to where I want to be. That is a fabulous transformation.

It only happened so fast because we hired someone else to do it. ;) Which at first I felt guilty about, but then after figuring out how much it would cost for us to excavate and grade ourselves (rental of a bobcat and dumptruck) it was cheaper to have them do that part for sure. The sprinkler system DH really wanted to do himself, but seeing how fast they got it done changed his mind. If it was us, we'd still be out there scratching our heads and running to Home Despot for the right tool. The plants I wanted to do myself, but again, they charged us at least what it would have cost us to buy them, and perhaps less, and they put them it, and got it done in about an hour and a half.

The concrete guy has been a whole other story. That's why it's not really complete yet. The patio stamp didn't turn out quite right in one corner, and water pools all over the place...one crucial place being right at the foundation of the house. That's the reason we did want someone to do the concrete, to avoid the pooling issue, but as it turns out...at any rate, they're here this morning re-pouring the one section. Also, they put in a concrete edging around the lawn, the kind where you can put your lawnmower wheel on the bottom part...anyway, instead of digging a trench to put the edging in, they just put it right on top of the ground, so the part where you put your lawnmower wheel was actually three inches above soil level, and instead of edging it looked like parking lot curbing. So they pulled all of that out, and haven't been back to re-do it yet.

Also, we decided to change the way the fence is...so you can see an arbor in one of the pictures...that used to be a gate, and that was all fenced in. We've decided to put a gate across the driveway and keep that section open as in the picture. (We have to have a fence because of the dog.) So that will be done in about three weeks. (hopefully.)

So, I'm looking forward to it being completely finished, although even partly done I can enjoy being out there now, and I don't get depressed and overwhelmed, and I've got seeds sprouting in my garden boxes! Next year we'll change a window into a sliding patio door, and add a pergola and it will be completely complete. And I get so exited looking through garden magazines now that have all kinds of pretty planters, and knick knack stuff, and patio furniture (!!!) because I have a place to put them!

yardkat, those raised beds are exactly what I want to build for my vegetables!!!! Would you mind terribly sharing the details of how they were constructed? When I saw them I grabbed my husband and pointed at them saying, "See? That's what I want okay?" Some things that I'm curious about are: how was the ground leveled, how are the boards joined together and are the frames anchored to the ground in any way? Any help you could send my way would be greatly appreciated.
I hope that everything has been fixed to your liking!
Jennifer

Hey Gardenymph,

My DH built them, I don't think it was complicated in any way, but I'm going to have him write something later to describe the process a little bit better than I can. So if you don't mind waiting a bit, you can have more information.

Thanks yardkat! I don't mind waiting at all!
:)

Thanks for sharing the evolution of your yard. Very interesting!

looks great id be very proud of a lawn like that awsome use of the space you have.

Great transformation!! Congratulations.

Wow, yardkat!

I hadn't looked in here for a while. Your yard is looking great! Very inspirational and I like seeing the different stages.

Katia

Any more photos to share, yardkat? Your backyard and mine appear to be very similar in size and shape. I plan to start renovating mine next year, and I'm already nicking some of your ideas. Love the patio!

Gardenymph,
Finally, here is what my DH wrote about making the beds.

Materials:

Redwood 2x12 either 8 or 16 feet long

Hot galvanized box nails 1/ 1/4 inches long

deck screws 3 1/2 long. (I used "Deck Mate" brand. I liked them because they came with a driver bit enclosed and I never had any trouble with screw heads stripping out. They also were color coated in red to match the boards.)

brackets: I just went to the place in the Home Depot where they have all the joist hangers and brackets. Look for the longest "L" bracket you can find. You'll need 4 per bed.

The bed sizes I made were 3x8 and the smaller ones 2x4. You can make them any size you like but I wouldn't go much wider than 3-4 feet(harder to reach across) or longer than 8 feet(the sides of the beds will bow too badly if longer than 8 feet.)

To put them together just "butt" the ends of the boards together. Pre-drill the holes for the deck screws. If you don't know what size bit to use find a scrap and test it out. This helps to prevent the boards from splitting. I put three screws in each joint, staggering them just SLIGHTLY...meaning when you look at the screw heads they shouldn't form a straight line. You don't want to stagger too much though

After all the joints are screwed put one bracket on each corner of the inside of the box and nail them in place. I put the brackets in the middle of the joint.

That's it! Your boxes are built. If you want you can also put a cross piece in the middle of the box if you are concerned about the sides bowing out. Attach them with screws. I didn't do this so we'll see if they bow out...so far they haven't.

One last thing, either dig a 1 or 1 1/2 inch deep trench and set your boxes in it. You don't have to dig out the whole area, just a little wider than where the boards will sit on the ground. Backfill after you put your bed down. That will keep them in place and help prevent the sides bowing out. Or if you are going to put some rock or something down in your planting bed area like we did, just place your boxes and then put your 1 -2 inches of rock down around the outside of the beds...that will help hold in the sides.

Hope this helps and have fun!

Yardkat, thank you and many many thanks to your fabulous DH!
I'm printing this off now and I'll be sure to post pictures of the finished product. Great detailed instructions and tips.
Thanks again to both of you!
I'm so excited!!!!!!!!!!
gardenymph

yardcat, I hadn't seen this post. Your yard looks great!
How did the garden work out in the new raised beds? What did you plant? My raised beds are cedar and I love them. Its fun to pack different things together in the same bed.

The garden worked out pretty well in the raised beds. I did have some problems, and at first I thought it was the dirt they brought in, but I have since determined that it was probably because I got a late start. For instance, germination was an issue...I didn't get any carrots or cukes, and I only got three sunflowers which were later infested with aphids anyway. And at first I did more "rocking" than weeding...the dirt had lots of stones in it so I figured that it was just fill dirt that they had mixed with some sand and added horse manure...I could still see some of the horse poo...and so could my dog. ;) My corn grew, but I had some problems with it...I didn't get complete ears. (I've had two people tell me two different things and they both sound plausible. One was old seeds, and the other was uneven germination, so next year I'll buy new seeds and plant more closely than the package says and see if that changes anything.)

I think a lot of problems were because I got stuff in so late. For weeks and weeks I had great looking canteloupes with lots of flowers, but no fruits. Well, now I have some fruits but we'll see if they'll ripen in time. Same with zucchini. We went on vacation for a week at the end of August...before we left we'd eaten two zukes, and there were none on the plants. I came home to four huge big bat zucchini and made 7 loaves of zucchini bread out of ONE zucchini!

I've pulled out some plants, and now have four empty beds which I've added some of my unfinished compost to. Today we go to Home Depot so I can get some bagged compost and finish the job. I just can't make enough compost!

As for some of the other plants in the yard...well, they don't look so great. The landscaper said "too much water" which is strange because we didn't water much, but when we dug out a dead plant, it definitely was really soggy soil...so there may be some drainage problems going on. We'll see what happens next year.

But it's so nice just to have it done and be able to enjoy being in the backyard without feeling sick. And also, I've seen my first worms in the beds and in the compost, which makes me really happy!

Hey yardkat will you tell us or take a close up pic of the stuff around the airconditioning unit. it did a good job of hiding it.

I'd love to, but something happened to it, and it's shed all it's leaves! It might be dead, it might come back next year, we don't know yet. Luckily the plants are guaranteed for a year, so if they're dead they'll be replaced.

Sorry, maybe next spring! If I can find the plan, I can tell you what they are, I'll have to go foraging in DH's office to find that, so I'll let you know.

wow oh wow love the pictures and how well it all came together!
Thank you for sharing this event, very inspiring!

cant wait to see new pics!!!!!

HEllo YARDCAT!

Wow you sure did a great job...I did my yard similar and yes I happen to have a water pool right in front of the side door..I was going to have them redo it but when it comes to that its always a problem after one another..So from now on I pretty much do my own work myself....

Yes it may take longer but its gets done the way we want it and we know we have good soil....As for your composting if you want to gain more composting , then start a pile in the back some where for now and add lots of grass, leaves and some top soil...Wet each layer down abit then when it comes spring you should or will have a good pile of compost ...If its not quite ready then just add it to your regular composter as it will break down quite fast over the spring and summer...Onces you have a good pile started the compost breaks down much faster..
As for your before and after pictures..You did an awesome job... Nice landscaping...I hope you get to enjoy the back yard more often... Happy Gardening....

Chatterbox Lyle...

i hope it is o.k. if i bump this up to the top again? i just read the whole post from top to bottom and am SO impressed! .. any chance you would please post some follow-up pictures of your wonderful project? thanks, phyl