When we moved into our home 5 years ago, we immediately got to work on our front landscaping. We enlisted the help of my friend Marsha, owner of Harvest Moon Gardens. She helped us with the initial install and we have been tweaking it ever since. Robert and I love working in the yard together--we are a good team. Robert is meticulous in taking care of it: cutting, mulching, fertilizing, pruning, and edging. And I like to design the new planting areas, deciding which flower combos best complement each other.

 We haven't done a whole lot to our backyard. We have built it up somewhat as it had a deep slope down to the creek. But, it has been  hard to really figure out exactly what to plant because it gets full sun in the spring before the leaves come out on the trees. But, once it's late spring, then it is pretty much full shade. So, I have had a hard time in deciding what would thrive in these conditions.   

2 years ago, it was time to replace the front landscaping mulch. We raked it all up and carted it to the back yard and spread it along the creek edge. It made a huge difference in the appearance as it was all just dirt before.

It's hard to tell in the pictures, but the yard was really steep from the mulched area to the waters edge. We wanted a more level area and so we decided this weekend to create a rock wall to bring the ground level up a good 4 feet. Our back yard is full of rocks and roots--another reason we haven't planted a lot in back. All the rocks we use are from our property. He started with a base layer, trying to get as level as possible.

After about 3 layers of rocks, we decided that this was a good height.

We back filled the top area with top soil up to the level of the top of the rock. This is the view from the top.

And standing down at the creek, looking up.

I am so happy with the new level area! It feels like it has given us an additional 10 feet of backyard. We also divided our overgrown front yard daylililes, tall grasses and hostas. They found new homes in the backyard. 

While Robert was stacking stones, I was creating a home for a new patio. Do you see my circle?

I dug down as far as I could before hitting some huge roots.

Then I started collecting my rocks and sorting as to size for my soon-to-be new River Rock Rug. This is probably about 20% of what I will actually need...  

I'm excited about the possibilities that our new backyard will give us. And so pleased that mother nature is providing us with almost all of the materials needed! 

Tomorrow I will show you my inspiration pictures of what I hope I can accomplish!