Tuesday, April 21, 2009
Backyard Work
The previous owners made a bit of the mess of the backyard. Apparently they took down a grove of cheery trees and then planted grass seed over some of the area. On one side there was a shed and a carport that they used for their dogs. I’ve been using the carport to store the Land Cruiser, since with the tent on top, it doesn’t fit in the garage. The shed was falling apart, but the first thing we did after buying the house was to fix that up. We tore down a lot of bad wood replaced it and cleaned it up inside. Removed a whole bunch of dirt and dead rats. Installed a new door and window. It cleaned up nicely.
The carport however was quite ugly, but still functional. So we moved it. Now it is blocked by the house so you can’t see it from the seating in the backyard. That also gave us 20′ or so of open space. There used to be raised two flower beds in front of the patio. They made the seating at the table a little cramped, and the dogs thought they were a great place to lie so no flowers grew. We took those apart and used them in the 20′ of new space in front of the shed to build up a garden area. We rescued a bunch of what looks to be good quality top soil and brought it over. A couple extra bags from Home Depot and we might be able to get something growing. We also put an 18” fence around it. Small enough to be invisible from a distance, tall enough to give the dogs pause before leaping into it. So far they’ve stayed out when we’ve been working in it.
In one corner of the patio area, instead of poured concrete there were a bunch off flagstones. These were not laid close together and were set too deep such that they were mostly covered with dirt. We dug those up and laid them down in what is left of a gravel path running out towards the garden. They are set just for looks now. We need to go back in and dig off the top inch or so of gravel then the stones and then bring some nice river rock in around the flagstones. We are also going to continue the river rock around the corner and run along the garden to the shed. The old carport was set on top of a number of 3×3 garden trim logs. We saved as many of those as we could and are going to dig them down and use them to line the edge of the path. This will help define the transition. Something that was sorely lacking in the previous layout where it was just sort of a messy flow from gravel to mossy areas, to places the grass seed took.
A few more ideas that we are playing around with: Sod the whole area. The grass yard area is pretty much unusable because of how lumpy it is. I think it was never sloped to drain properly, that and decay from the removed cherry trees makes it awful. I’m hoping we can till the ground through out the grassy area, break it up, slope it right, and then lay sod across it. This should give us a much nicer grassy area. And with it being nicer, we are more likely to keep it up and free of dog droppings.
We also are going to try to enclose the heat pump with wood trellis since it is rather ugly and right next to the outdoor table. Also, we are thinking of building a little storage area near the hot tub to store all the cushions for that table. Right now half the cushions live in the garage and the rest live near the table. The storage area would hold all of them, would add some steps to make getting in and out of the hot tub nicer, and would provide a big flat spot to place drinks while in the hot tub.
Finally, we fixed the lock to the gate so it should be easy to open from the inside and the outside, which will make getting the Land Cruiser in and out much more pleasant. And, we went around and took down all the various hanging pots and other junk attached to the fence. It was very knick-knacky and they were all quite ugly. Just doing that gave the yard a good face lift.
Now, a puppy picture.
Add comment
Fill out the form below to add your own comments