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Our Backyard Makeover
by
ScrappyGeek.com
(IC: blogger)
$2500
3 Weeks
Medium
When we bought our house the backyard was a disaster. There was a garden which had been neglected for years and overgrown with blackberry bushes. We knew we needed to do something to make it our own. We're not the gardening type people so we certainly didn't want to attempt to tame and tend this 50' by 20' behemoth of a garden. So, we decided to completely remove every blackberry root ball, and create our own oasis!
The photo above is a picture taken in the early spring, before the blackberry bushes had the chance to come out of winter hibernation. We knew we needed to tackle them before they woke up, or we would be in trouble. If the blackberry bushes had been leafy and in bloom, you wouldn't be able to see the back of the house in that photo. They were 6 to 7 feet tall, and there were thousands of them!
It took a few weeks of ripping up blackberry root balls after work, but we go them all out - or at least 99% of them out. We decided to install a nice 16'x16' patio and steps leading to it.
After planning and digging the hole for the patio and figuring out our pitch, the hardest part was moving the 18,000 pounds of material from the front of the house to the back. We used a trailer on our lawn mower to transport it 300 pounds of material at a time. Nevertheless. We moved all the materials and installed the patio in two days! (two of us!) See the project here: http://scrappygeek.com/diy-patio-installation-how-to-build-a-paver-patio/
After installing the patio, we needed a way to get there from the house. So I decided to install steps leading from the deck to the patio... The last thing to do was sow the grass and add some decoration!
Here is our finished project! We took an overgrown, nasty, prickly garden and turned it into a backyard that we love!
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Published July 23rd, 2015 9:49 AM
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Diana Deiley on May 29, 2016Great job. Would be nice with some shade sails. LOVE your backyard space.
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