Backyard Tour
When Corey and I were looking at houses nearly a year ago, one of the things that immediately caught our attention about our home was the amazing backyard. We have two dogs with a lot of energy, and so a large backyard was on the list of things that were absolutely non-negotiable for us. With this home, we happened to luck out with not only a large backyard, but a beautiful one. The people who lived here before us obviously knew their way around a garden (unlike me), and had planted a ton of beautiful plants outside (as well as some that we can’t wait to get rid of).
I never got a chance to really show proper photos of our backyard, because things were insane when we first moved in, and just a couple of months later winter hit and the backyard wasn’t looking so hot. But now? Spring has officially sprung in our neck of the woods, and our yard is looking beautiful once more. We have big plans to change things up in the yard (it doesn’t have a lot of functional space for actually hanging out right now), but for now we’re loving just having some nice, lush grass and a few pretty plants!
When you are standing at the back door looking out on the yard, this is your view:
Don’t you love the gross, paint-covered table? Yikes – that needs to go soon. But for now, it’s the only table we have so it’s going to stick around for a little while longer. The patio off of our back door is absolutely tiny, as you can see, and someday we would like to expand it to the end of the house and add in some outdoor furniture like a nicer table and maybe even a small couch and chairs.
This is the side of the yard off to the left of the picture above. We plan on getting rid of those ugly, boxy bushes and extending our patio all the way to the edge of the house over there – we’ll get some sort of pergola for the area for some shade, and we will probably spend 90% of our time out there when the weather is nice. I can’t wait!
If you walk over to the left side of the house, you can see the little flower bed that was left over from the previous owners.
It’s hard to get a good photo of it because of all the shade, but it’s a really pretty little area (which is lucky, considering we have no idea how to take care of it). We have some giant bushes that hang over the fence from the front yard (which we probably need to trim), a small tree, and a few rose bushes
We’ll have a ton of roses soon, judging by all of the little blooms you can see on the bush – I have a feeling it’s going to be absolutely beautiful!
I’m not sure what kind of bush this is, but it produces some gorgeous flowers – we clipped most of them this weekend to bring inside, but one of them bloomed the day after we clipped them. You can see the little pop of red in this photo…and if you get a little closer…
So! Pretty!
As of right now we’re just desperately hoping we can keep this little area alive and well-tended for this season, but we’re hoping by next year we will have learned enough to add a few more things to the flower bed. I’d love to have a beautiful garden over here with a ton of flowers, so I can always have fresh blooms in our house during the spring and summer!
If you turn around and look back towards the yard from the flower bed, you can see our beautiful little row of crepe myrtles – they look gorgeous during the summer.
I love that these trees are here, because on the other side of that fence is the street – it’s not a busy street at all, but there is definitely some traffic from people driving by, walking by, or riding bikes by. It’s wonderful to have a little bit of privacy from the rest of our neighborhood, and these trees end up providing a pretty good deal of shade to that side of the yard!
In the back of the yard (you can see it in the above photo), we have an old peach tree that needs to be cut down. It looks like the previous owners cut down the branches in order to try to revive it (we did some research and apparently that’s what you’re supposed to do), but it definitely didn’t work. That poor guy is donezo.
We’re sad that we’ll have to get rid of it, but we plan on using that space to add a raised vegetable garden (hopefully next summer), so I think it’ll be worth it in the end!
Just so you can orient yourself in the yard, if you turn around from where the above photo was taken, this is what you’ll see:
Yeesh – our house is in desperate need of a paint job, isn’t it? I hate that awful peachy color, and the blue trim just about kills me. I cannot wait until we can re-paint the house and actually have a pretty view from the back! And, so you can orient yourself to what we’re looking at in the house, that giant window at the corner is in our dining room, and the little window to the left of the door is over the kitchen sink. The bay window is in the breakfast nook, and the window you can see on the second story is the window in our guest room.
And then, finally, if you turn left from the above photo, you’ll see the rest of the yard – which is where our absolutely amazing workshop is.
The above photo is the back of the workshop, along with a little baby tree that will hopefully provide some added shade to the yard in a few years!
And, of course, the other side of the house is totally boring – just an air conditioner and the gate leading back to the front of the house.
And that’s what our backyard looks like! Corey and I have been having a blast lately hanging out in the yard with the dogs (they love to run laps around the workshop chasing each other) and we can’t wait until we’re able to do some work out here to make it an even more comfortable place to hang out. This is the first home I’ve ever lived in that actually has grass and not just rocks and stickers, so it is one of my favorite things in the world to just run around outside with no shoes on and chase the dogs. I swear, I turn into an eight-year-old when I go out into the yard.
Another favorite thing about our yard? The flowers! As soon as Corey and I saw that our rose bushes were blooming this weekend, we grabbed the bud vases sitting on our mantle and ran outside to fill ’em up. And now my living room is looking a lot more cheerful.
Drool. I absolutely adore fresh flowers and these are particularly beautiful (probably because I feel responsible for them since they came from my yard)! I am so completely in love with the flowers from our little garden, and it really motivates me to learn more about gardening so I can have even more!
What is your backyard like? Do you have any flowers growing? Any tips on how to make sure our flowers don’t die on us? Or – better yet, anyone know what the red flowers are? Corey and I are stumped!
Your mystery bush is a Garden Rose bush, my mom grows them in her backyard. Camellia bushes have longer pointed leaves.
Good to know! Thanks! 🙂
One of the reasons we bought our house was for the backyard. It was amazing and the previous owners spent a ton of time getting it to look the way the wanted. And while I still like our backyard, 2 years later it doesn’t look nearly as good, and it’s a ton of work. We had a baby peach tree, but I’m pretty sure I killed it because I had no idea how to take care of it. I did break of some limbs already, but just with my hands which I’m sure is all kinds of wrong. But hopefully it comes back to life.
I still love our backyard, but I’m thinking with our next house we might want something that’s easier to manage.
So jealous! Makes me want to get my buns in the yard and get to work!
Your backyard is so huge! What a great place for the dogs to run around!
What an awesome backyard!! I know the thing I’ll miss most about our house here is the yard. I’m dreading going back to our tiny thing in NJ!
Love that you can pick your own fresh flowers!! They look wonderful on your mantle!
I think your mystery bush with the red blooms is a Camellia. Beautiful.
Ahh, thanks, Sandi!
Those roses are ridiculously gorgeous!! You are so lucky to have them. And a big backyard is so important for the pups.