We are in the process of renovating our Mom’s two side yards. Right now, we are working on the side along the wall of the garage. It’s been a process, with removing old shrubs, and relocated/reusing others.
Even though it’s been a lot of work, it is exciting to see the improvements that the renovation has made. Side yards really get ignored, sometimes. Homeowners seem to put a lot of thought into making their front and back yards attractive and inviting, but not so much the side yards.
If you think about it though, many times guests use the side yard to get to the patio or deck at the back of the house. And we bet that at least one of the side yards at your house gets a lot of traffic with normal family use. Many side yards are looked at as just passage ways from one area to another. Wouldn’t it make sense to make this space as interesting and attractive as possible, not just for guests, but for you?
What Happened
When we began, there was a mix of plants of various types and sizes (photo below), which included a couple of old, overgrown yews and several azaleas. English ivy was growing on the wall in a couple of spots. We decided to make use of the ivy in the new design, but more as an architectural element.
A number of years ago, the side yard looked like this. You can see the English ivy growing in two places on the wall – beneath the window and near the back. Everything was tidy, but really there was no design.
Our Mom wanted to reuse the azaleas (3 in all), and she wanted to add some Knockout roses in the new design, also. So roses, azaleas, and ivy were to be the stars of the show.
Prep Work
The overgrown yews were removed, and two of the azaleas, which actually were in really good shape, were moved to their new location in the new plan. Different types of azaleas can have different bloom times and we wanted all of the azaleas to bloom at the same time for the design effect. One azalea wasn’t used in this design because of that, but we’ll use it in another part of the yard.
When we started work, the side yard had become overgrown. One of the yews had been removed before this photo was taken.
New plants that were purchased to complete the design included two Knockout rose bushes and 3 azaleas.
Before any of the shrubs were installed, additional topsoil was added to the bed, improving the slope to redirect water away from the house and into a side yard swale. We dug up part of the ivy, which had been growing there for years (maybe decades) and had developed quite a root system. We relocated it for the architectural element we mentioned.
Currently, the shrubs are fairly small and far from being filled-in and lush. The transplanted ivy had taken root, but it needed to be growing on the wall, not the ground.
That’s an azalea in front of the ivy, but you can see the ‘ivy in training’ behind it!
We started to train the ivy to grow on the brick and it will be maintained in an arched motif, which will be a little over 4’ wide and about 6 1/2’ at it’s highest point. The trick was to find a tape with good adhesion to brick to support the ivy until it attached itself to the brick. We used Gorilla tape and it seems to be good!
The New Design
This is our design and what it will look like after a couple of growing seasons.
The new look.
Design Talk
Explaining our thoughts behind various aspects and elements of the design, is what architects are uncontrollably inclined to do! More importantly, it may help you with your projects. So here goes. The design is symmetrical, with two ivy arches on the wall. Three azaleas are centered on each arch, and there are two rose shrubs in the very center of the design.
Benefits that the ivy arches provide –
- act as a backdrop to the overall space and breaks up the monotone of the brick wall
- their height will help to visually scale down the height and mass of the brick wall, bringing the focus down to eye level
- has an acoustic effect of softening noises that tend to bounce off of walls
- a great way to add an architectural element to the design
This side of the house gets used a lot, about 95% of the time, by everyone going between the front and back yards. It’s not going to be just a boring or ‘pass-thru’ space any longer! Our Mom loves going over there to look at the roses and to see how things are taking shape!
We looking forward to when everything begins looking like the design sketch. We’ll update with a photo when it happens. In the meantime, we hope you got some inspiration for your own yard from our project.
