Long before we decided to remodel the house, we thought about fixing up the back yard. In fact, we did have a fence built and some of the wild blackberry bushes taken out. Unforturnately, we also had to have a very large ash tree removed because of diesese. The picture on the left is how it looked when this was complete - it was a definate improvement over the previous "woods" that existed out back. At his point we asked the the contractor who did the fence job to give us a bid for back yard landscaping. The bid came in pretty high and we were beginning to seriously consider construction on the house so we decided again doing any work on the yard until the remodel was done.

Jen's design breaks the yard into several different areas. There seemed to be plenty of space to work with to create the areas. We had some general ideas about what we wanted in the yard but not any really much in the way of specifics. The major features of Jen's design are: the shed, raised veggie beds, an herb garden, a shade garden, grass, and a water feature.

Part of the design involves creating tiers that will mitigate the sloping lot. The tiers are created with stone walls. In the interest of cost, we decided to build the walls ourselves. So 4 tons of rock were dumped in the front yard and then moved to the back for the walls. Above you see the beginning of the first wall (upper corner of the lot) and to the left is the finished product. Not too bad for a first try -- Jen is a great supervisor!