How We Brought Our Dream Backyard to Life in 5 Weeks Plus a Backyard Tour (and video!)

Oh, the simple pleasures. I enjoy taking short walks in my garden in the early morning to check on everything. Listening to the birds singing, watching the small chipmunk, Chippie, scurrying around, and admiring the many red roses that I had mistaken for yellow when I first planted them. Red is definitely more beautiful. It's such a delightful walk.

Since moving to our current house, we have been enhancing the backyard, which was bare bones, with an addition of a two two level deck, a gazebo, and perennial gardens. The inspiration to finish our backyard living space came from hosting our daughter's two bridal showers this year. There was one area of the backyard that I just couldn't get my head around, that led to no progress due to my indecisiveness for the last 6 years. Eventually, I decided to seek assistance from a professional landscape architect, as we knew this would be a lovely landscape for the bridal showers, but also something we would enjoy ourselves (not to mention great for the re-sale value of our home)

I gave Tara Lock, from Causative Design Services a call and we met for coffee to discuss my backyard. After much discussion, and 2 coffees later, Tara saw my vision and put it into action.

Armed with designs, earth and limestone screening samples, rocks, bricks, and inspirational photos, Tara came to my house to demonstrate vividly how she could improve our backyard with function and beauty. I was so impressed by her meticulous detail for the plans, the varied levels in the design, beautiful flower beds suggestions, multiple seating areas, and the option for a water feature. Ultimately, we opted for a simpler design as we realized that Sean and I would be taking on the project ourselves.

Here is the final design. Now we were on our own (Tara was always very helpful throughout the process just the same, answering all my emails with soo many questions).

Things we wanted:

1). A better flow for our flower beds

2). Open up the area to flow better

3). Remove grass and use natural materials like limestone and pea stone

4). Create a new sitting area for our Solo Stove.

5). Create a serene space for some quiet moments.

This is where we started from:

We removed the cedar trees and gave them a new spot, the shape began to take form

On track to achieve a record-breaking project completion time of less than 5 weeks, we had finished laying the limestone ground cover, setting up the flower beds, and installing twinkly lights. Everyone pitched in, including my parents who helped shovel and transport dirt.

I have a deep appreciation for the natural elements present, such as the pea stone and the flat river rocks collected from our home in Stirling, Ontario. The relocation of the cedar trees was a smart decision that helped to open up the area. Despite my worn-out Hunter boots, physical exhaustion, and several blisters on my hands, the effort we put in truly proved to be worthwhile.

All that remained was to watch the blossoming of everything and ensure that the wood box was kept filled for our evening Solo Stoves.

It was such a rewarding project. I am grateful for everyone who stepped in and help us to create the most beautiful backyard to host our daughters two bridal showers.

I'm so thankful for Tara's expertise from Causative Solutions. Without her, I wouldn't even have known where to start. But I'm so thrilled with the result.

Now that the parties are done, we can kick our feet up and enjoy... that is until I start the next project. Shh I haven't told Sean yet.

Stay tuned ;)

Love

T xx