Initially, I didn't know where to start. The whole job just seemed really overwhelming and foreign. This is our first house and although I've planted many things before, I've never been given such a big blank slate (64 feet from the back of the house to the fence, and 51 feet wide from chain link to chain link).
We don't need a hyper-landscaped showpiece of a backyard; I just don't want it to look quite so neglected and embarrassing.
Then something clicked in my brain and I started thinking of the yard in a different way. First, I accepted the fact that it wasn't going to all get done in one season or one year. Maybe not even two or three years. For a number of reasons (time, money, sanity), we can't do it all at once.
And I started thinking about landscaping in familiar ways. I don't need to find new plants; I can start filling the space by dividing perennials we have in the front of our house and planting those. I could even add "fun" non-living elements, like a bench or sculpture. For some reason, that made the project seem more attractive in my mind.
While I'm still a little foggy on the details, I do know a few things.
- I want the main yard space to remain relatively open.
- I've decided to work with my natural, semi-woodsy backyard instead of against it. I'm not going to try to tame it or make it into something perfectly manicured.
- Everything has to be low maintenance and drought tolerant. I am not a gardener. I enjoy planting, but pulling weeds or watering? Forget it. I'd rather be working on something else.
- I don't want to spend a lot of money. Luckily many of the improvements won't cost a thing but our time, like removing the old wire fence (more on that later this week), taking out the stumps and transplanting some perennials.