My DH and I have been working on improving the landscape for the past 5 years and I'm quite happy with the results. The final project will be to install a large stone or paver patio that sweeps from in front of the deck out to the shed, but we decided to put that off until after we've done the kitchen. I did my best with the pictures, I hope they are good enough to show what we've done.

A friend of my DH is a landscape architect, and he's been working on the inside of her house for more than two decades so when we asked her for help with the yard she was happy to do so (we paid her for her time, of course.) She was able to take my many ideas and examples of different things I like and put them together into a wonderful plan that we have been following these past years. We hired out the hardest work; everything that required heavy machinery like the grading and placing of large rocks, but did the rest ourselves. DH is a professional contractor and I am an avid gardener, I dream big and he picks out the best of my ideas and figures out how to make them happen. I hope at least some of you think we did a good job ;o)

View out of kitchen window before:

View out of kitchen window after:

View from outside the sliding glass door before:

View from outside the sliding glass door after:

Looking towards kitchen and workshop before:

Looking towards kitchen and workshop after:

Shed that came with the house:

New shed, veggy beds, and fruit tree espalier:

My flower garden is still a work in progress, the sun conditions are a bit challenging so I'm still figuring out what works best in that spot. The perimeter plantings are coming along, some took to their spots nicely and others have needed to be changed out. It'll be at least a few more years before I'm really happy with the softscape, but the improvement over what we had before is enormous. We never used to spend time in the yard and now we not only have parties out there, we also spend a lot of time just sitting on the deck enjoying the view of our hard work. The best feature is still our wonderful oak trees, but they seem even more beautiful now that they have a nice landscape framing them.