Young House Love

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Slowly Updating Our Landscaping

When it comes to our jungle-esque backyard, we last left off with transplanting/digging up one giant 15′ garden bed and leveling it all off in the hopes of growing some lush green grass. And we’re back with a little backyard update (why yes we did spend the weekend getting muddy and why no, I still don’t have Madonna arms, but maybe a third day of bush whacking will be the charm?). Much like any other “room” in the house, it’s definitely a do-it-in-phases thing, especially since it’s such a you’ll-be-sore-after-each-phase process, but there’s something awesome about digging around in the yard for a few hours while the bean naps and Burger sleeps lazily in the windowsill (slash “Supervises”) because there’s a pretty obvious change at the end of all that digging. For example, after three and a half hours of work on our second phase of backyard bushwhacking, here’s the difference:

Bef After4

Yup, we tackled the second 15′ wide garden bed and got to work on digging out about 50% of the path-blocking liriope that went crazy and decided to grow so enthusiastically that it makes your legs all itchy if you walk down the path in shorts. Makes me twitch just thinking about it, actually. See how the path looks about 3″ wide in the back section of this photo that we didn’t dig up yet?

Diggingliriope1

And see how we gained about 6-8″ of walking space on each side (for an estimated total of 12-16″ less of liriope once we get both sides done)? Raise the roof. That’s about 300% more non-leg-itching freedom that we gained.

We put all the liriope that we dug up in the side yard where lots of it is already growing (and actually looks wild and free and pretty in a giant mass, so we’re totally cool with it going bonkers and covering the entire wild area in our side yard).

Diggingliriope2

Digging up liriope isn’t for the faint at heart. John started on this task while I cut down the second 15′ planting bed (trimming everything back and then digging it out at the roots to transplant it or remove it seems to be the most manageable method that we’ve learned to tackle such large planting beds). Meanwhile John was showing the liriope who’s boss by digging up sections with his shovel (using the jump-on-the-shovel method to make sure he got all of the roots up so these guys don’t sprout back up in the spring to surprise us). That’s right, J-Boom put his back into it.

Bef After7

Then once I had the planting bed trimmed down (but not dug up quite yet) we looked at the clock and realized we should tag-team the liriope (I worked from the far end while John worked from the end where he started and we met in the middle) since Clara was going to wake up from her nap in about an hour and a half and we wanted to at least have that one leg-tickling side knocked out. We even had time to grab some dirt from a few bare spots back in the woods at the end of our lot and rake that into the holes that were left from digging up the liriope, so there weren’t any giant pits in the yard. Whew.

The view from this angle is the most dramatic change. This is basically what you see when you walk beyond our side patio and turn to the left to see the backyard. Your eye used to stop about ten feet in front of you at that giant planting bed, but now it goes all the way back to that pretty maple on the other side of the backyard.

Bef After3

It actually looks like a backyard instead of a bonafide bushfest back there. Although we still have a few more rows of liriope to dig out along with actually leveling the 15′ bed that I trimmed down so it’s all ready for grass seed. Not bad for one afternoon though. There’s just something so satisfying about a little reclaim-your-yard bid-ness outside (especially since the weather has been awesome lately – not too hot and not too cold).

I know our backyard is really hard when it comes to orienting yourself since there are just a ton of trees and bushes that all look the same, but this is the old & new view just beyond the patio (the comparison above is the view if you walk about four steps forward from where the shots below were taken and turn 90 degrees to the left).

Bef After2

Maybe this terrible rendering that I did of our lot a while back (with our house sketched about ten times too large and the area around it dwarfed by the giant house in the middle of it all) might help you get your bearings. At least it helps you see where the brick paths go and where two two 15′ garden beds used to be in the back:

Sketch Of Lot

Oops, but it’s old so it doesn’t have the deck, which now fills in that odd alleyway area between the original house and the 70’s addition on the left side of the house. Anyway, if all goes well we just think it’ll just take one more phase of bush whacking back there to remove the rest of that crazy path-encroaching liriope, level out that last garden bed, and seed everything in the hopes that we can get a nice lush carpet o’ green going on. You know we’ll keep you posted…

We totally love that there’s a big woodsy lot behind our house, but we’re total suckers for a nice swatch of lawn in front of that for the bean and the burgs to run around on. I think it all goes back to our first house’s backyard (ah spring, nothing ever looks this perma-green in the fall):

Final Backyard After

Grass in the front + woods in the back = our favorite kind of backyard mullet. So although our current house’s backyard will only be about half as deep as our first house’s was when it’s all seeded and lush, we’re cool with that. Still enough room for playing but less to mow and rake. Jackpot.

What did you guys do this weekend? Anyone else digging around outside and crossing your toes for a nice long kid-nap while you’re out there getting dirty?

Comments

  1. Ellen says

    Wow! What a dramatic difference. I like your not-to-scale rendering because it totally helps to picture the yard, so I think in honor of your two-year anniversary at the current house you should update it with the deck and minus several bushes! :)

    Reply

  2. T. Y. Lee says

    I definitely got dirty this weekend!

    We bought a “new” house, and the builder’s idea of landscaping was to just put MULCH in our front yard, for ALL OF IT, along with a few trees and plants (some of which were blocking my windows).

    So we had to rake away all the mulch, dig up trees and shrubs, transplant them to parts of the yard that made more sense (and some of them were just wrong for our yard anyway, size-wise, since our lot is TINY, so I gave some away), and we JUST planted our grass seed, and so right now, our lawn is a stripped mud swamp, but in the spring, it’ll be glorious. Or at least that’s the rumor. ;)

    http://ihatebeige.weebly.com/1/post/2012/10/stepping-on-a-rake-and-getting-hit-in-the-face-less-hilarious-in-real-life-and-a-lot-more-bloody.html

    Reply

  4. susan says

    Loving the cleared out yard-every kid/dog needs some sapce to run around in :)

    Our house was abandoned when we got to it-so ALL the landscaping, front and back, had to be ripped out and redone.

    We did the back that first year ( for our Boomer, of course), and the front the next. I was never so tired after putting in backyard sod and front yard flagstone-and I’ve raised twins! LOL

    We’ve done more since this post ( finished the pond and fence), but you can get the gist here:

    http://sharingourpath.blogspot.com/2012/06/before-and-after.html

    Reply

  5. Gretchen says

    Looking good! Yard work scares and overwhelms me, so we stayed where we couldn’t see the yard all weekend….Ikea trip, started the big winter clothes switchover, and a trip to Creepy Critter Day at the nature center, where we saw a very cute bat.

    Reply

  6. Craig says

    I love the brick paths that are now exposed in your yard. There is something about meandering walk ways outside in shade dappled woods that leave me intrigued.

    No major landscaping recently for me, but soon I will be on hands and knees planting many a tulip bulb. My back is already yelling at me for the work involved that I have yet to do…

    Your yard is looking amazing!

    Reply

  7. Jamie says

    Oh man. Two weeks ago, my husband got fed up with the completely overgrown bushes in our backyard (we’re 5’5″ and 5’6″, and the bushes were taller than us), so he borrowed and electric trimmer and completely ripped them out. We are in the process of breaking up the huge clumps of bush and vine and putting them in manageable bundles for the yard waste people.

    Reply

  9. Kate says

    Got my Redbook magazine yesterday and, as always, I look at every. single. page. (usually in order) in the publication.

    So imagine my surprise when there in the Table of Contents, I see a bookshelf similar to yours (your dining room) with decor similar to yours (the butterfly artwork was what tipped me off!)

    I turned immediately to Page 142 to confirm that yes…it’s the Petersik’s! :)

    Reply

  10. Starr @ The Kiefer Cottage says

    We’ve decided to dump our aspirations of green lush grass in favor of things that don’t need so much water. The drought decimated our yard in several places, so the next few years will be devoted to finding attractive plants that can deal with the Kansas heat and dryness. Better for our wallets and for the environment.

    It helps that my eldest will soon be 5, which I think is the perfect age to stop pretending to help in the garden and actually start working like a dog like the rest of us!

    Reply

  12. Sophia says

    Love this blog and love seeing all the progress you are making it REALLY inspires me! We bought an old house on long island and it is a lot of work and money, after a year I feel like we have finally made progress. Though we wanna do more ourselves. Can you recommend any posts I can read to get some DIY home construction advice?

    Reply

  13. Staci @ My Friend Staci says

    “Grass in the front + woods in the back = our favorite kind of backyard mullet.” This totally made my morning!

    Thankfully we have been doing NO yardwork since we moved into our pristinely manicured apartment complex. I do have an empty planter on my patio begging to be filled though…..

    Reply

  14. Amanda says

    “Grass in the front + woods in the back = our favorite kind of backyard mullet.”

    These are the little gems that make reading your blog every day so much fun :)

    Reply

  15. Emily E says

    No yard stuff for us (though we probably should. We’ve really neglected it due to bigger projects inside the house). But, we painted our family room walls and ceiling so that the electrician can come today and put in all our lights, switches, and outlets!

    Reply

  17. Erin says

    I am curious are you guys planning on keeping the brick paths or will you get rid of them to make a “whole” backyard?

    Reply

  18. Jane says

    Hahaha..backyard mullet is da bomb! Great progress guys.

    Sherry – Off topic , but what kind of body wash/shampoo/diaper creams do you use for clara now ? I remember a lot of people mentioning that california baby is no longer good..do u have any suggestions ?

    Reply

  20. katalina says

    I like lirope under trees in a bed or raised berm–but I am beginning to rethink it! I have three huge ones that I should have divided a long time ago and are the size of texas… i was thinking of putting lirope and tulips in a huge beds that has 2 willow oaks to cut down on weeding but I am rethinking it!

    what tool helped the best to dig up? a pick axe? a bobcat?

    Reply

    • YoungHouseLove says

      We did a lot of it with a shovel and jumping on it to sink it under the roots, but an axe helped for crazy root systems of other things we dug up. Hope it helps!

      xo
      s

  21. jeannette says

    the landscaping before and afters are really powerful. you know the tale of faust? sells his soul to the devil on the condition the devil will ask for payback the second faust says, to the moment he’s in, “Stay a while, you are so beautiful.”
    faust leads a long hedonistic adventurous life at the end of which he is building a city. yes, landscaping. he is standing on the promontory overlooking the city his power and money has built (complete with the usual terrible eminent domain stories about kicking philemon and baucis out of their cottage) and he looks at his city and says, without thinking, STAY A WHILE. YOU ARE SO BEAUTIFUL.
    RUH ROH.
    anyway, that’s what i think when i look and landscape before and after pix. this is fabulous,

    Reply

  23. Barbara says

    WHEN DO YOU SLEEP???

    I got my copy of Redbook this month, and saw a shelving unit with a white ceramic animal. I thought “wow, I’ll have to send a snap of this to John and Sherry – it looks just like what they like.

    Imagine my surprise when I saw it was YOUR HOUSE and realized why it looked so YOU.

    I have one, teeny tiny thing I was upset about. No Burger in your family pic in Redbook. Made me sad.

    Reply

    • YoungHouseLove says

      Aw thanks Barbara! They used pics from our book for that story, so the good news is that there’s TONS of Burger in the book! He’s in it much more than any of us. Haha!

      xo
      s

  24. Ekaterina says

    This is exactly what we have been doing with my husband all week long. Spending a couple of hours after work outside digging stuff out and clearing out our yard. And it is not nearly as huge as yours! My heart was breaking, when I had to cut an overgrown rose bush. It was so pretty. But it’s for the best. Amazing how much better things look, when they are neat. We still have a long want to go though. Work in progress.

    Reply

  25. Samantha says

    I love how your backyard is coming along! It’s giving me the confidence to go outside and get some yard work done, even though it’s cold outside! :)

    Also, I just went to pre-order your book on Amazon and I saw it’s #405 in Books! That’s pretty cool! :D

    Reply

  26. Sara says

    Completely in awe. And jealous that you still have green. We’ve already been below freezing a couple times and most of my favorites turned brown and wrinkly. Send some of that warmth to Montana!

    Reply

    • YoungHouseLove says

      It took about 3.5 hours this time and last time I think was around 4 hours. The next installment will hopefully take around the same amount of time (4ish hours) to dig out the rest of the stuff and seed the grass. Here’s hoping!

      xo
      s

  28. Judith says

    Oh my. Good luck getting rid of the liriope. It should be called a weed. I have been trying to get rid of it for years and it just keeps coming back. I cannot wait until next spring to see if you still have runners sprouting. Please let us know!!

    Reply

    • YoungHouseLove says

      We’ll definitely keep you posted! We had luck removing some from the side yard with the patio and the front lawn, so so far it’s been great (just have to get down to the roots and get them out, because if they stay, it re-sprouts!).

      xo
      s

  29. Sasha says

    Hi,
    Oh the garden looks so nice :) Love how you tackle things slowly, shows how much time fixing up a garden actually takes opposed to all the tvshows :)
    I don’t know if anyone else has suggested this before or whether you have tried it. I have never removed liriope, but last spring I removed a couple of huge bamboo bushes, and found that a shovel was to hard going. Instead I used the fork thing (sorry English is not my native language and not quite sure what it is actually called. It worked wonders, I got the roots without all the earth, which made it much less heavy.
    Good luck on your future garden endeavours, can’t wait to read about them :)

    Reply

  31. Heather W says

    Sherry, Great job! The weather has been beautiful to do this kind of work. I have to ask you though have you seen some of the sneak peeks of Nate’s line for Target???? OMG. obviously I can’t afford to buy it all but would love to own something. Any suggestions or are you coveting anything that has been shown… You know there is a turtle shell and a small ram head I think… Would love to know… Thx!

    Reply

    • YoungHouseLove says

      YES!!! They’re gorgeous! I’m so excited about the turtle shell, some of his textiles, some gold vases he has, etc. I want it all! Haha. Will definitely post about my Target raid when/if it occurs!

      xo
      s

  32. Tara says

    There have been quite a few posts about the liriope all over your property. Every time I read about it I always think of licorice. I have this mental picture of giant licorice taking over all of the pathways in your yard.

    Reply

  33. Jessica says

    I can’t get over the vast quantity of liriope that you guys have all around your house! You guys are much more patient than me. If I had that much on my property I wouldn’t have the patience to transplant it, I would just be riping it all out!

    Reply

  34. Megan H. says

    Looks great!
    We got a new puppy a week ago. Since we are spending a lot of extra time outside potty training I have been using the time to start cleaning up the yard for the winter. Lots of trimming back and raking! Our new puppy addition likes to ‘help’ by digging wood chips and eating leaves.

    Reply

  35. Kim says

    Guess what? We get to meet each other this Saturday!!!!! My daughter is coming all the way from Nashville too! Win, win for me! We will try to act mature, but it’s going to be hard. :)
    See ya soon!
    AHhhhhhhh!
    Sorry I just had to get that out of me!
    Kim

    Reply

  36. katalina says

    I think Sasha might be referring to a maddock tool– short handled

    One side is flat and the other a pitch fork– it is good for edging a clean bed line too if you re on the ground and digging up invasive weeds ie lilrope

    Reply

  37. Amber says

    I am sure this has already been mentioned, but I don’t read all the comments so I’m sorry if i’m echoing what someone has already said.

    i just wanted to let you know that I opened my issue of country living and I got halfway through and saw your names! Congrats! It was a cool little spot about some of your before/afters (maybe even some stuff that went in the book??).

    I just wanted to say great job as usual! :) :)

    Reply

  39. Sarah says

    It’s looking so much better! I love having a grassy backyard for the kids. Side note – Country Living came today and I am taking a peek at some of your book projects inside! Very fun! I have it on pre-order. :)

    Reply

  40. Megan says

    Wow! That’s a good before and after! I can’t wait to see you guys finish removing enough to make a nice grassy area. It’ll be nice to have with a dog and baby!

    Reply

  41. Crystal says

    The yard is looking great!
    I was also very excited to see three projects from the book as I was flipping through my new issue of Country Living!! I LOOOOVE that dresser!!

    Reply

  42. Elizabeth says

    Wow it looks awesome so far! I will admit, your backyard layout still confuses me a bit – I think it was all the bushes, trees, and liriope that was there before!

    Reply

  43. Tara says

    A strange question perhaps :-) but I have 2 slipped discs in my back & a toddler doesn’t help matters at times. Hubby also has back issues….do you guys suffer at all from back problems with all the physical stuff you do?

    Reply

    • YoungHouseLove says

      Thankfully we haven’t yet, but John does have a bad knee and I have a bad ankle, so sometimes we have to take it easy or elevate/ice them! Haha. We’re a mess, but we love our DIY!

      xo
      s

  44. Bobbi says

    It is amazing how much curb appeal you have in the front with what you did, and how much more open the back is!! You’ve done a great job!! Here in So Cal we have green year round and changing annuals is the most fun we get, so I love to live vicariously through your four seasons!!

    Reply

  45. Jenifer says

    It’s really coming along nicely.

    I haven’t had to dig up that funny little plant, but our cottage — which we rent — had a small bed (about 10 ft long and about 2 ft wide on the back side, and about 15 ft long and 1-2 ft wide on the other) of agapanthus.

    In addition to digging up this massive amount of agapanthus, we also discovered *a lot of trash*. And it wasn’t nice, simple trash like potato chip bags. It was broken beer bottles!

    the thing that was tough was reaching in to pull out agapanthus and grabbing a corner of a broken beer bottle. My son was “helping” me (he was just about 2 at the time), so this, of course, really freaked me out.

    And, we *have to* recycle glass here. You are not allowed (without getting fined) to not-recycle, which meant that I had to fill my bin with broken bottles, and then HIDE the bin on the roof so that the shorty wouldn’t get into it (because he gets into things). Crazy!

    It took thee days of working 5 hour stints to clear out the agapanthus. That’s one girl plus one 2 yr old plus 100 or more broken beer bottles against what appeared to be one continuous agapanthus.

    Anyway, I planted lavender. So nice and lovely. Easy care. Doesn’t crowd the pathway (well, the one lavender is getitng out of hand, so I keep trimming it back), hardy across from the sea (which is across the road from our house), and easy to manage overall. Weeding is nice these days. No beer bottles. pull out the clover.

    I know how it feels to go “thank goodness that is done.” But it looks like you have about 10,000 more yards of that to go. So, have fun with that.

    If you want, I’ll send my friends over to put beer bottles in, you know, for the extra challenge. LOL

    Reply

  46. Heidi P. says

    Oh no you di’nt! You instagramed your book! Get OUT! (a forceful Elaine-shove).

    Lots of gardening going on here. It’s a terrible idea to work at a nursery when you own a home. Should I buy those mums and tulip bulbs since I get a discount? … *hesitation*… Probably not. And yet, I have mums and tulip bulbs on my porch waiting to be planted. And despite having done a design for the place, right now my strategy is just to plant things willy-nilly and transplant them in the right spot later. :) Haha. Your liriope-less path is lookin’ good!

    Reply

  47. Manuel Cagigas Garcia says

    Hello good morning. –

    I have a blog in Spanish and am a follower of younghouselove long. My English is very bad, sorry. I really like your way of life and I want to congratulate you on that. I follow you for years, but I did not dare to comment, today I decided and hopefully not giving you bothered with that letter.

    My blog is http://www.elclubdelapuchera.com/, is a blog of food and rural life from Cantabria, northern Spain town.

    Thank you very much for being there for us to enjoy simpre with it but we are so far.

    Congratulations on your communication efforts.

    A hug Manuel

    Reply

  48. Kendra says

    This is totally unrelated to your post also, but I just saw you guys had an article featured in the newest issue of Country Living Magazine! I first just glanced at it and thought some of the stuff looked familiar and sure enough it was yours! I can’t remember, did you mention on the blog that this was going to happen? Nice little surprise :)

    Reply

  50. Danielle says

    I just bought my first house! My first act as a homeowner was removing the oleander bushes in the backyard so my leaf-eating dog can also move in with me. It was really satisfying to see those go!

    Reply

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