I forgot about the tree guy. Trees grow a lot in 20 years. They will fall over when it is windy or chunks fall off in an ice storm. You can knock yourself out if you don’t duck low enough when you mow the lawn. He convinced me to prune the underside of the trees. I have a lovely old classic purple lilac bush with a maple tree that was overtaking it. It has doubled in size this year. He also has a “plant back” deal when he takes down an old tree. You can pick out a replacement and pay wholesale. They charge usual rates for planting it.
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Do you need a garden? My idea of gardening is to plant 5 trees or bushes a year. I have 5 young trees in pots and that is enough for me. I planted 30 trees one year and that was a miserable job, but now they are about 10-20 feet tall. Shade at last.
Yesterday, I briefly thought of putting a pickleball court in there, but I’m so sore today from playing with my sister that I’m using a cane.
Your question was “how does one get started?” and I would begin with asking a few questions back:
What do you need the space to do for you? Frame a view, be a place to sit, give privacy, have flowers for cutting, veggies etc etc? Choose one main goal for a smaller space if poss.
How much money do you want to spend?
What is the aspect of the space, north, south etc.?
How much sun and or shade does the space get in various areas?
Are you interested in a garden that uses less water, or has drip lines? Water use is critical in my area and we installed six 55 gallon barrels that filled in one storm this year from 1/3 of our roof space. That’ll keep our plants watered past June and if we had room for more barrels we’d be covered for the full year.
What is your USDA zone?
What kind of pets or wildlife get into the space that will affect the plants there?
All of this helps define what kind of hardscape you might need as a foundation (paths, terraces, fencing etc) and that’s one kind of pro help (a landscape architect and/or fencing etc contractors etc) and what kind of plant knowledge/design and layout (a landscape designer) vs upkeep (a “landscaper” or mow’n’blow type maintenance person, or an arborist for tree maintenance)
If the budget doesn’t stretch to pro help, I recommend looking at what plants do well in neighboring gardens and starting with those. The master gardener program provides volunteer help too, as others have said.
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I think this is the major stumbling block for me. I don’t see a use for this space, in the general way of living on this property is concerned, so it just represents work with little reward.
Even leaving it alone, I can’t leave it alone or it becomes some kind of weed producing mess that infects the other areas.
I suppose I could rip everything out, weedstop and mulch it. That would be ugly, but low maintenance.
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But you do see it - look down on it from the deck, right? 35 X 75’ isn’t that big - should be relatively easy to fill with low maintenance plants that are pleasing to the eye, perhaps provide habitat for native birds and pollinators etc?
Yes, but really we sort of look OVER it. I think moving the raised beds to this backyard location would be great, but I’ve got a Y chromosome on site to deal with. He just built the raised beds in another location entirely.
If you really have no use for the area I would just cover it with pea gravel and plant a handful of nice shrubs or very small trees for a bit of visual interest.
That. Or fill with natives that will out compete weeds and provide shelter and food for native insects and birds. In N CA that means mimulus, ceanothus, baccharis, artemisia californica etc
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Oh I feel your pain!
Yet. You don’t YET see what this space could/should be. I vote for just mowing it down, keeping it mowed to manage any weeds, and just let it sit for awhile. Over the winter, moving into spring-summer-fall… you will develop of sense of “how” you “use” your land. Maybe that sounds odd but what I mean is over time as you move around your property you will find yourself walking the same paths or looking at the same area and thinking “gee I see X,Y,Z as potential here” and then it will come to you, what to do with this area.
Here’s an example from my own yard. When we built this place we put up a fence right away (dogs). The fence enclosed our backyard and came towards the front to about the halfway point of the house. The side fence was wooden, the back fence was wire. Anyhow, over time the fence started to rot and I was perusing ideas to replace it. I had all kinds of thoughts but nothing would gel. Then we had a windstorm and I went out to find the fence laying on the ground. Now that the fence was actually down it gave a whole new look/feel to that part of my yard. We no longer had dogs, so that wasn’t an issue anymore. Now that I had a completely different view, my mind started seeing other possibilities. I still wanted some kind of separation from front yard/back yard, but not a fence so much. The next winter we had a horrible ice storm. All kinds of trees came down. My inlaws had an old giant maple, it came down. By this time I’d already decided I wanted to haul in a large log to use as my separating point. I hadn’t yet found anything. That maple coming down was perfect! The diameter of the limbs was just right. I measured what I wanted, hubby cut it and him and friend hauled it home and got it situated into my yard.
Anyhow, my inability to decide on a new fence brought me to a whole other possibility, and I’m glad it did.
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I would xeriscape it then, for sure. Curving brick paths and patios around minimal upkeep areas of interest. Would work for sure around an ADU to give that some walkways to/from and patio space, etc.
I understand your comment. Just replying to note the ADU would not wind up in the back yard, but elsewhere on the property.
Also, about waiting and mulling, we’ve lived here a year already and I’m still not seeing it.
Now, like everybody else, I really hate it when someone looks for advice on COTH and then says, “No, nope, not that” to every suggestion, so I want to say THANK YOU for your comments so far, and I am looking at some of the inspiration pages offered, and ultimately will come up with a plan.
Our back deck is brimming with birds at the birdfeeders, so I think whatever we eventually settle on will have to be designed to benefit the birds.
Sorry, this comment made me think it was also in the backyard.
I’m taking Xan’s starter questions and filling them in. May be helpful eventually.
What do you need the space to do for you? Birds. Or Veggies.
How much money do you want to spend? Not a Lot. Want to spend not a lot (money or time) on maintenance, either. I am not a gardener and there’s more than enough garden attention sucks on this property already.
What is the aspect of the space, north, south etc.? Downhill slope to the east, about 1 foot in 20 drop.
How much sun and or shade does the space get in various areas? Good sun. South exposure on the 75 foot axis, East on the 35 foot axis. Existing trees shade the north end of the yard for a lot of the day.
Are you interested in a garden that uses less water, or has drip lines? Low water use (unless it’s veggies). We are putting in a rainwater harvesting system that will eventually hold 15K gallons, but the first step is only 5K. Water should not be a concern, but I also don’t want to put in a water demanding garden.
What is your USDA zone? 9b?
What kind of pets or wildlife get into the space that will affect the plants there? This is the dog’s yard, but he won’t hassle any birds, and he’s too short to bother raised beds. Birds of all types, mostly small. I have chickens and geese elsewhere: this yard might be big enough for the chickens to wander, but not the geese. Don’t want chickens in my raised beds, so I think both types of domestic bird will stay out. In the neighborhood, we have deer, coons, coyote, wild turkeys, etc., but none have tried getting into this small fenced area yet.
I am allergic to the world, so the plants have to be low allergy plants. I can usually do a good-enough job of choosing individual plants based on research, but it’s one reason I haven’t gone to a designer yet. I have yet to find a designer who pays attention to allergen potential. I would need a designer to design the shapes, without designating plant, then do a second cycle where s/he reviewed my plant choices (for zone, maintenance and compatibility) to refine why or why not to use them.
Maybe if I found someone starting out, I could encourage them to pay attention to this specific need, I don’t know. It’s also time consuming, and then you wind up with a list of 10 plants, 6 of which hate the zone, the soil or each other.
Before I made final plans I would drive around and see what grows in your area. When I moved here I decided that I really loved the look of English gardens. You know - David Austin roses, hollyhocks, foxgloves, delphiniums, rhododendrons. But I found out quickly that only roses and foxgloves would grow in this climate and being in the countryside, the deer also loved roses. None of my plans grew like I thought they would. And also be aware that trees that are for sale and flowering at Lowes and Home Depot may very well not flower at your house. I bought a weeping Yoshino and several pink weeping cherries because they are covered in flowers in the store and were so pretty in gardening books - they don’t flower here. We have summers that are too long, dry and hot and not enough cold dormant temperatures for them to flower. These trees came from a different area and were probably treated with flowering hormone before they ended up at the big box stores for sale.
I also planted some Kousa dogwoods because it sounded like they would thrive here. People don’t grow them much around here. Because they don’t bloom for some reason. Mine have been growing at least 20 years and not a single flower.
However Japanese magnolias love this climate. You can drive by abandoned houses and there is a big one blooming its head off with no care for years, if at all. Mine are low maintenance after they get established and bloom like crazy in the Spring.
I have really started to pay attention to what other people in my area are growing. If I don’t see something I like I might try growing it but I won’t spend lots of money and effort seeing if it will work. The chain saw might be coming for the weeping Yoshino.
