Our yard has been mostly unimproved over the past 20 years. The grass part itself is beautifully maintained and we are lucky to have an 11-zone sprinkler system installed. Everything looks lush and green with a basic program of watering every three days which, for the Denver area, is pretty good.
Since we bought the property last September, we have slowing been tackling the job of reining in the yard and reclaiming the edges for use.
BACK YARD:
At one point, the backyard had what must have been a pretty rock border that abated weeds. The border meanders about 10 feet from the fenceline in a slow, waving pattern. I'm sure it was at one point a beautiful landscape, but the rocks are totally ineffective at this point. The rock border is most evident along the west border.
The yard to the north side of the house (a side yard roughly 20 feet wide by 60 feet long on the NORTH EAST portion of the back yard) has a slope and is covered in rocks. This is likewise overgrown, and, in addition, so rarely inhabited that it is easy to get freaked out at the prospect of stepping on a snake. I had originally planned to put pumpkins on this slope, even with the rocks, but the fellow who we hire to mow the lawn sprayed it with a weed killer that literally kills everything in the ground.... for a year. Yes, I know. This is totally horrifying. I had no idea and have since learned my lesson. Whenever anyone offers to apply a "treatment" of any sort, I need to know exactly what they are using. Sure, there were a lot of weeds there and we weren't going to spring for a new rock placement or anything just now... all the same, I don't want things bombed on my property! So, short news is that the north side is completely dead for planting for a year. We will obviously not grow any food things on that side ever.
The north west side of the yard will eventually have a very nice garden. There is a great flat area for it where there had once been a level play yard. We decided that if we ever do put in a play structure, it won't go in this part of the yard as it gets sun most of the day. Sun = great for plants, bad for little kiddos' skin.
The south west sector of the yard has several lustrous and overgrown lilac bushes. There is also a very old, mostly decayed raised garden bed and some hardy looking blackberry or raspberry bushes. The bushes are so well established that they have several volunteer trees popping up. We plan to take out the volunteers and debris and put a garden shed in this corner. We will keep the mature bushes, but in the meantime I need to learn how to prune a lilac and trellis a berry bush such as the raspberry / blackberry so I can train it to stay along the fence again.
The south border fence is lined with a few clusters completely overgrown, sprawling and lanky red dog ear bushes. These bushes are taller than the six foot fence. They are really pretty and I hate to lose the privacy provided by the months they have leaves, but they are in desperate need of a good pollarding or coppicing. I plan to do one or the other at the end of next winter and see how it goes.
Finally, the south-east side yard (40 feet by 16) gets non-stop sun during the day and the bricks on the house cast heat at night. Because of this, I have hired people this spring to tear up the completely abandoned mulch border (home to tons of bindweed) and replace it with good soil and alpaca crap to create a heat-lover garden. I just planted out our ten tomato starts last night!
Back Yard Trees:
We have two ask trees near the house. One has been pruned to resemble a gun tower, but is strong enough to handle a hearty swing. The other is smaller, has a nicer spread, but is weak. We have a small swing on it, but I fear the children will grown large enough to snap the branch before it becomes strong enough to support a larger weight!
FRONT YARD:
The front of the house, which faces east, is all mulch bordering a yard. There are no plantings to speak of. There had been an ivy patch near the front steps and garage, but we had that torn out STAT to get rid of one of the snakes' favorite hang outs. That area is now covered with mulch.
Front Yard Trees:
We have an evergreen tree on the north side of the yard. It used to have a gorgeous sweep onto the ground, but we had the tree trimmers bring it up. We thought it would come about a foot off the ground so, again, snakes couldn't den in there... Unfortunately, the trimmers chopped off about 4 feet, leaving a weird looking tree. It breaks my heart and I am considering getting rid of it altogether.
So, that's the summary description. I will post pictures later!
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