Garden Planning

I will start this post off by letting you all know that I am a garden killer.  I have a black thumb.  I'm certainly no garden designer.  In fact, I have no idea how to plan a garden out so it even looks decent.

That said, I have still decided to give it a try.  I would love to hire this project done but it's simply not in the budget with so many other renovations going on.

It's raining/snowing/hailing here today so I'm stuck inside.  It's probably a blessing in disguise since I have a lot of planning to do for the garden.

Here's a drawing I did of my existing backyard:

There are so many problems with this area of our home that I feel completely overwhelmed by it.  Most of the existing plants and shrubs are in bad shape.  They are leggy and messy from not being properly pruned for many years - as you may have noticed in yesterday's photos.

These are the jobs we need to do to prep the yard:

• move paver border back several feet and create a curvy border
• remove dead cedar in right corner
• remove tangle of blackberries in right corner
• pull up pavers in centre garden
• dig out the rest of the dandilions in lawn
• add topsoil and overseed lawn

These are my ideas to make the yard look better:

This part includes:

• adding three hostas to right corner (using existing plants I divide)
• purchase three tall cedars for top right hand corner (adding privacy and filling in empty space)
• purchase one hydrangea and transplant one existing hydrangea to left corner
• purchase two tall grasses for right corner for privacy and to cover compost bin
• Jay to build privacy screen for left side 
• purchase climbing plants (?) for up screen
• cover entire garden with mulch to reduce weeding and make it look nicer

There are also probably going to be some other places that plants are needed to fill in.  Maybe that will be phase 3.  I want to get these ideas implemented and then see how things are looking.  

Now, if it would just stop raining!

xo Meg