Backyard Oasis

Throughout this semester I have spent many hours working on our backyard landscaping project. Moving into this house this year I knew that the backyard was something I wanted to make a priority as we love to spend time outside and host family and friends. As this project went on I learnt many new skills and also found websites that I could rely on to help out with this huge project. When taking on this project I thought it was going to be an easy and fun task to do. I did not realize how many steps there were to a project of this size. 

Starting out with this project I started out by planning what I wanted our backyard to look like and what we want to achieve for this backyard. We soon realized that we would not be able to get all of this done this year for the time we have and how much it will cost. 

We made getting our yard graded and grass planted a priority for this project. There were many steps we had to go through before we were able to plant grass. Before planting grass we needed to rototill and rake and level our whole yard. This took many weeks and patience with the ground needing to settle and the amount of rain we had with the ground needing to dry so that we could work with it. The other struggle that we came upon that slowed us down in planting grass was wanting to have the sprinkler system up and running before we planted. We went through struggles with water pressure and finding the best way to water all of our grass evenly. Also as we were working on the main ground work my grandma offered me some raspberries that I needed to create an area for them and learn how to take care of them. Thankfully this last week were able to get our grass planted and it is slowly growing. 

As I started this project I knew nothing about what I was doing. I appreciated that the main part of this project was to find websites and sources that I can use to help me to reach my goal. As I went through this journey I learned what I find helpful in resources and what is not helpful to me. The websites I found the most helpful were the ones that treated me like I was a beginner and used basic terminology and also had easy to follow pictures. There were many helpful sites out there that helped me to accomplish this project. 

This project is nowhere close to being complete but is at a point where we feel good about what we have done and have learnt many different things along the way.

Before:

Now: