Signs of Spring

 

 My backyard is in desperate need of some work and all winter long I've been itching to get started. I've only had one summer in this house and the previous owners were NOT yard people. The yard was a complete mess last year and it was all I could do to gain a little bit of control while planning our wedding at the same time. Last year was a crazy year!

 I'm looking forward to a much calmer summer where we can relax and enjoy our backyard. Some of the things we did last year was add the herb garden and iron fence (above). This year I will add more fencing around the entire garden to keep the goat  Alfie out. He ate my cilantro down to nubs and constantly smells like Rosemary.

In the photo below you can kind of see a curved line running through the grass. Before, that was a gravel pathway running through the middle of the yard. We had to scrape up all the gravel and planted sod. This year we would like to add a pathway over to the right. We also added the patio. There wasn't one before. The curved stones aren't staying by the patio. They're there to hold everything in place for the winter and the blocks to the left will all be relaid. We quickly set those down before winter came! We also added the little fire pit which may be moved elsewhere.

 Unfortunately, all 3 pine trees are going to be removed and replaced with "real" trees, haha. I like the pines but they're so big they block the rest of the yard and they provide very little shade.

Other goals for the backyard this year:
 - Bury some of the power lines, especially the one to the garage
 - add a door into the garage from the backyard
 - improve parking pad behind fence in the back (currently its basically a muddy lot)
 - new gates in the front and back
 - new trees
 - add stairs leading from patio down to yard
 - add pathway from steps back to garage and parking pad
 - add raised vegetable beds in the back of the yard

And that may all we can handle for this year! We'll see how much we actually get done. I love working in the yard maybe even more than I enjoy working in my house :)

Any of you have big plans for your outdoor spaces?