I've been working on the back yard for a while now, and I think I've finally come up with a design that we will enjoy spending time in. Here are some progression photos of before and after.
1. The first step was getting it to this point. It started with piles of wood and trash, and it was overgrown with weeds worse than this.
2. This is the almost finished product. I want to get a bench for along the fence and maybe a fire pit for the middle on the stones. And possibly add some hanging plants on the back wall above the tree to add more height. But for now, I'm really happy with the progress.
The view from the balcony looking down.
I made the retaining wall with old wood from a shelf we took down in the garage. The house was built in 1926 by my great grandmother, and I'm pretty sure it's the original wood, so I wanted to keep it as part of the house, plus I like the idea of recycled wood, and the patch work look.
Because it's a beach house, the back yard is sand, so any plants we have need to be in above ground planters or pots, and even still I plant things whose roots don't mind some sand so they don't rot when they get deeper. I'm excited about the dwarf orange tree in the wine barrel. We really love growing edibles even in our small space.
Under the stairs there isn't a lot of direct sun light during the day, so I started this bed as vegetables, but have progressively altered it to be a succulent garden so it looks nice all year round. My hope is that behind it, under the house we can eventually make a home for a couple chickens to have our own eggs, but for now, it is still a project for the future.
