Landscaping Small Yards

When it comes to landscaping small yards, Jeff and Amy's backyard landscape and design certainly fits the bill!

They don't have much more than a little "postage-stamp-sized" front and backyard, and not much room to work with.

While it may sound as if I'm saying that this is a hindrance, it's quite the opposite!

Due to the small size of their yard, it is very easy to make a huge impact in the curb appeal of this home, without an exorbitant amount of work or money and just a little touch of backyard landscaping.

First things first...let's get to the pictures! Here's what their front yard looked like before the landscaping was installed.  They had had larger evergreen bushes in the front of the house, however my brother had removed them prior to me getting there.

Thank god!  They were beastial! (So I hear....)

Fortunately for me, I was starting with a relatively blank canvass.  Because of this it was very easy for me to properly prepare the soil before getting any plants in the ground.

Whether landscaping smaller yards or working on a larger project, the proper preparation of the soil is an important step and one I would NOT recommend skipping.

When I originally created their landscape and design, I did it with the assumption that I would have the same amount of room on the right and the left side of the house. I didn't take any measurements, and I wasn't sure exactly how many bushes I would need. When I decided to make my purchases, I bought less than what I had actually put on my design, which ended up being a good thing.

The point I'm trying to make is that when landscaping small yards for the do it yourself landscaping designer, you don't necessarily need to spend a lot of time creating the design, and setting everything up to scale.

As long as you have a general idea of what you want the finished product to look like, that should be sufficient.

While Jeff and Amy had agreed with the home landscape plan that I put together, seeing it in 3-D is different than seeing it on paper. 

I laid out the plants, and then had them take a look at the design to be sure that they liked the way that it looked.

This proved to be a good thing.

I had designed the plants to arch out away from the house, however they decided that they preferred to have them in a straight line closer to the house.

They also changed their mind on where to place the pyramidal yew.  I had originally intended that bush for the far right of the house to give them privacy from the neighbors, but they felt that it would feel crowded, so we moved that bush to the back of the house instead.

I would recommend laying out your plants before planting them even if the design is for you and you're pretty sure that you like the design.

Seeing it in person is always different than seeing it on paper.

The end result of this small yards project turned out pretty well!  They tell me they get compliments on it regularly.  :)

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