We've decided to have some landscaping done this year. It would be so nice to have full use of the backyard. The fence on our neighbour's side will start in a few weeks. With the help of Ian's uncle, we came up with the idea to have a stone patio extending from the sliding glass door to the back of the yard.
Then the rest can be grass and planters.
We brought in Heritage Stoneworks to design and quote on it. The plan is a big pdf. I've had to break it up into 2 images. Click on them to view full size. I should note that just because it's in the plan... doesn't mean we're going to do it now or maybe ever. It's just a plan to start with! Also, the big wavy-ish circles you see on the plans represent potential shade coverage of a tree.
This is the backyard. The big empty space at the bottoms is the house. There is a barbecue area near the sliding glass door, a firepit and then directly to the left of it is a pondless waterfall. What's a pondless waterfall?
Click here to find out. The firepit won't look like the one in the picture.. it will probably be at least 3 rows high and have some sort of 'topper' around the edge. The patio will be made of interlocking stone. The 3 black dots next to the patio represent a focal tree. There are planters to the left and wrap around the yard.
The biggest thing.. and probably hardest to describe is the fence. Ian was adamant that the fence somehow be open. I agreed with him.. Our backyard isn't that big... and it would be a shame to lose the view from the living room and have a "closed in" feeling. Heritage came up with a great idea - a wood and wrought iron fence. Here is the view of the fence from the
street side.
So basically the trees and wrought iron are indentations into our yard. This keeps the backyard feeling open while maximizing our privacy. We love the idea.
This is the front yard. The driveway is probably on our list to do another year.. but I don't know.. maybe it will only be $5... who knows. =P We really wanted something on the corner because people are lazy. They feel the need to walk across the 1 or 2 feet of the grass on the corner. It's been very hard to keep it alive. Heritage's idea was to put down river rock and some grasses, move our existing maple tree over and surround it with big rocks. We wanted to keep as much grass as possible... but that corner grass has been hopeless.
The only other potential dream/wish thing is sprinklers. I'm so over the watering of the lawn. Maybe it will be different with the reduced amount of grass... Anyway, hope you like our plans. Clearly we haven't got the quote back... Ian hasn't had a heart attack yet. Once we get the itemized quote back, we will start picking and choosing what we want to do this year. I think we will have at least a fence and patio by the end of September. :)
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