Sunday, August 26, 2012

The Backyard Transformation

Jer and I spent the weekend working on the yard. The back part of the yard used to consist of a fence covered in overgrown ivy. It looked like this:


Then the week of July 4th, Jer stripped all the ivy off the fence, which left it looking like this:


My parents came to visit in mid-July and they helped put up a new fence. Since then Jer and I have been working outside, and now the back of our yard looks like this:


We put in river pebbles and planted a bunch of new things, which make me tired just thinking about. Hopefully they don't die. First time it rains I expect the dust to wash off the rocks and change the way everything looks. Until then, hello new backyard.

All photos in this post were taken by Jeremy.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Looks great. What is your parents' address?

Folly Blaine said...

Thanks. Let me just get that address for-- Hey!

Anonymous said...

I did a similar project this summer. I didn't get a new fence, but attempted to mend the one that was there. The digging of weeds, rocks, and mostly hardpan was killer, but I have VICTORY after five years. I put down bark instead of rocks. Previous owners used rock extensively, and I found I just couldn't weed around them. Of course, there are always sprays. Did you lay anything underneath?

Folly Blaine said...

We thought about putting down weed blocking fabric and chose not to. All the articles I read reported that the fabric just caused a big mess in the long term and weeds would grow through the barrier anyway. The consensus seemed to be that if you had to put something down to use wet newspaper or cardboard.

A previous owner used plastic to block weeds on the side yard and it's a pain to dig through, so that also made me not eager about the fabric. Even after spreading bark above the plastic the weeds still found a way through, so I've just resigned myself to weeding.

We spread bark mulch around the base of each plant and the surrounding rocks are a couple inches deep.

Maya said...

Wow, impressive!

Folly Blaine said...

Thanks, Maya!