Evolution of the Yard

When we bought the house four years ago the backyard wasn't ideal for our needs. A big concrete slab without a fence. So we've slowly made improvements to make it a more livable space. Here's the back yard right after the purchase.

Here it is after the cedar fence was installed. The fence was a huge improvement and made the space seem even bigger, but we still only had a concrete slab. We heard about the the RiverSmart program awhile back and we signed up to have a study preformed to see what we could do with the program. The program offers $1200 toward the removal of impervious material, the addition of a rain garden, or bay scaping. You can also get discounts on rain barrels and trees. We ended up getting a rain barrel and opting for the concrete removal. We would love to say this was an easy process, but it took months of emailing back and forth with DDOE to the point where we thought it just wasn't going to happen. Actually it was only our last email saying that we thought this wasn't going to work out that it finally worked out.

We found Cleber at Xtra Care Landscaping and his team cut out 25 x 4 foot planting bed. They dug down a foot and put in planting soil.

  

Here it is ready for planting. We need to add a boarder to keep the soil in the bed. We're thinking a nice slightly raised stone boarder would be nice, but we're still deciding. In the meantime we picked up a weed cover fabric and staked it down to keep the dirt in place and our dog Quinn from digging too much. We're getting an Eastern Redbud tree planted for only $50 in early May thanks to Casey Trees.