Backyard makover Week 4: Side yard is the backyard
Help me please. I have a pie-shaped side yard where I have started the bones of my dream makeover. I have perennials around the perimeter of my property line. I have developed a love for vegetable gardening and want to add a vegetable garden to my yard but incorporate it as landscaping. The problem is I love clean lines and as I get older find myself looking at modern clean contemporary design in and out of my house. I just plain don’t know how to do this in my yard. I think this would be a challenge most Daily Herald readers would be interested in learning more about. I moved my vegetable garden last year to make way for the patio/deck area. I would love to know what to do with that blank house wall. The patio/deck area is disconnected from the rest of the back yard which goes around the house. I have a lovely family room with a sliding door but the view goes nowhere. It would be great to connect the back/side yards together and add a vegetable garden that looks like landscaping. I would consider it an honor to get selected. My yard could be a great entertaining space along with providing food to use for the summer. I have grown lettuce, peppers, potatoes, broccoli, want to try asparagus and cauliflower this year. Any suggestions, advice or opportunity to get help with finishing my yard would be awesome! I am an avid Daily Herald reader, especially the Home and Garden section. Thank you again.
What the experts at RYCO Landscaping recommend, on a budget of $5,000:
This homeowner’s side yard served backyard purposes, and they weren’t sure how to add color and modern style to their landscape. The RYCO Landscaping design team added a Belgard patio and seat wall, then used lots of hedges and perennials for color. Plants in this plan include boxwood hedge, viburnum, hydrangea for flowering color, serviceberry for height and miscellaneous perennials. Lush ground cover and Belgard pavers-as-stepping stones complete the clean look. By adding a few perennials for color, a few upright boxwoods for structure and a steppingstone path the clean style of the landscape becomes functional and provides access to the vegetable garden. A trellis with a climbing vine was added to a blank wall to bring color to that side of the patio space.
Beginning May 6, through June 3, the Daily Herald is publishing finalists in our Get Your Summer On backyard makeover contest. Two winners will be chosen and they will receive prize packages valued at about $15,000. Winners will be featured in Home & Garden on June 10. To see more backyard makeover ideas, special Web page at www.dailyherald.com/entlife/homegarden/summer.