Back Yard- Before and After

When we moved in this house in 2013 the backyard was completely over grown and had not been kept up. The yard itself was a good size but you would never know because it only had grass on about half, the other half was huge bushes and trees (dead and alive) and weeds as far as the eye could see. We knew what we wanted to do, but landscaping totally intimidates me so we focused on one area per summer. The first year we worked on the front yard, but I'll save that for another post. The next year we worked on what the homeowners were calling the "garden". We laid sod and built raised vegetable garden boxes. Then last year we decided to call in some professionals to help us level the lot and get rid of the trees and huge rocks. We also had to put in a completely new sprinkler system.

This is the house looked like when we moved in. If you can see through all of those weeds straight back there was a large berm up against the back fence. Also notice that huge holly bush sitting just behind that tree. It was covering what we thought was a small rock, once we pulled that out we realized the rock was about 6 feet wide.

 

Here it is now. Obviously they were taken at different times of the year. That tree doesn't get leaves till almost June, he's a late bloomer.

 

This is standing on the back patio looking at the detached garage to the left.

 

We pushed that garden area closer to the garage, took out the overgrown and dying trees. I planted some euonymus in the hopes that one day they will be a beautiful hedge. We also added the shutters to the window.

 

Again, on the patio looking at the back of the house on the right. This is what the previous homeowners were lovingly calling their garden.

Here you can see our raised beds, and the new sod. I just planted all of the box woods last year. Hopefully soon they'll fill the space a bit more. But I'm loving the clean simple garden

 

These were taken the spring after we moved in, after we had cleaned out the yard a little. Behind the garage there were piles of wood, lots of trash trees and more berms

 We built this shed last summer, we love it! It is big enough to fit our lawn mower, snow blower, and all out tools with room to spare. We still need to landscape around it but considering where we started we are feeling pretty good about it.

 

 At this point we had taken out that HUGE holly bush that covered the rock and got rid of 3 enormous piles of rocks.

 

After 2 years in the house we knew we couldn't do it alone so we had to hire some help to come in to level the property and to move the HUGE rocks

 

Such a difference! We are wanting to add a peach tree back here since they are my absolute favorite!

I cant believe how far the backyard has come! I cant wait to enjoy it this summer. Also the fact that we did so much last year is such a blessing because this year we don't have to worry about it with everything else going on. We just get to enjoy our time together! Just like everything else in our life we couldn't have done it on our own, friends and family helped us lay sod, guys there was so much sod. Also the day we received our Easter fundraiser family and friends came to help us clean it up. What a wonderful surprise!