First, we’re incredibly grateful for the outpouring of kindness and support you showed our family yesterday. Your encouraging words and shared stories mean a lot. Now let’s shift to something lighter: a long-overdue photo tour of our yard, inspired by Katie B’s outdoor tour.
You’ve already seen a few glimpses: our carport/driveway, the “alley,” and the magnolia out front. But there’s so much more to show. This post is photo-heavy—over 100 photos were edited down from a couple of weekends’ worth of snaps—so settle in for a detailed look at each area.
Let’s begin with the front yard, similar to what you see in our header.
The front yard is smaller than at our previous house—the house sits closer to the street—so there’s less grass to mow. That’s a win. We do have a fair amount of shrub borders, areas of groundcover, and a large mulch circle under the magnolia, so the lawn isn’t overwhelming. We have long-term plans to improve curb appeal and to rework much of the yard over time, but specifics will evolve as we go. It should be fun to see where it ends up.
Our main goal for the front is to make the entrance feel more open and inviting. Right now, boxwoods and azaleas form borders that act like a natural fence around the grass, but they also interrupt sightlines to the front porch. Ranch-style houses tend to read better with lower, more varied plantings that don’t hide the facade. We’d like to open up the view to emphasize the porch and create a friendlier approach to the front door.
Right now few people use the front door—delivery drivers head to the side door in the carport because the pathway feels narrow and uninviting. On move-in day we had to trim shrubs just to get furniture through. Since the front path naturally continues from the paver driveway, we want it to look usable and welcoming even if most guests continue to use the carport.
Our plan is to trim back, remove, or transplant some of the taller shrubs and replace them with lower-profile plantings to open both sides of the path. That should highlight the front porch, which we also plan to refresh in time.
One dominant feature around the house is liriope (monkey grass). There are deep drifts of it along slopes and borders that act as low-maintenance groundcover.
That sea of liriope is useful because it’s nearly self-sustaining, but we’d like to add color and variation in some spots. We’re also considering making other areas more naturalized. For example, the wild patch of tall grasses and leaves beside the stone wall is part of our property and looks unkempt from the street. We’d like to naturalize it with native grasses, wildflowers, and a few larger trees and shrubs to achieve a lush, semi-forested feel over time.
This area separates us from our neighbor to the left and provides welcome breathing room. Our lot is surprisingly similar in size to our last property—almost an acre—but this one is squarer rather than a long rectangle, which changes how the yard feels and how we’ll approach landscaping.
The back yard also includes a lot of un-landscaped space. The house’s rear, thanks to an addition, has a charming peak that differs from the front. Eventually we might paint or tweak siding and brick to unify the look, but that’s a long-term decision we’ll think through carefully.
Part of the backyard used to be wooded but was cleared at some point and now mainly holds leaves. We prefer keeping some areas “wild” rather than trying to grow grass everywhere. Our plan is to let part of the backyard remain natural and to plant fast-growing evergreens over time to create privacy and restore a woods-like feeling without adding too much maintenance.
We love the backyard’s charm, although some elements—like many small round planting beds along the brick paths—break up the lawn in ways that make it less usable for running and play. Sherry wants to remove a few of those beds to create a more open turf area for kids and pets while keeping the brick paths.
We’re also not sold on the thick liriope borders in many places; they narrow the paths and create a closed-in feeling. Eventually we’ll dig out some of the monkey grass and either replace it with simple turf to the edge of the brick or offer it up to anyone who wants to transplant it.
There are also numerous stone borders throughout the yard. They define spaces but are visually interruptive and make mowing a hassle. Some are useful where the lawn meets the wild area, but others—like the ring around a lone tree in the middle of the grass—feel unnecessary. We’ll likely transplant a few trees into the woodsy part to declutter the lawn.
Mowing around all those stone edges is a pain, so simplifying those bits will be a priority.
One more spot to mention sits behind the carport, just off the sunroom. We’ve called it everything from “Liriope Heaven” to “Burger’s Bathroom.” Here’s the view from the carport:
It’s perfect for our dog Burger: fenced on all sides, visible from the house, and full of interesting sniff-spots. We plan to continue removing liriope here and install a DIY stone patio to create more usable outdoor living space. Right now the only outdoor entertaining area is a small patio off the sunroom and living room that’s barely big enough for a grill, with a few pieces of furniture left by the previous owners.
The sunroom was once an outdoor space before it was enclosed; you can still see the original brick stairs that led up to it. We’re debating what to do with those stairs—they’re quirky but feel out of place now that the room is finished.
Overall, we’re smitten with the property’s outdoor spaces. They’re not perfectly “us” yet, but that’s part of the fun—there’s so much potential. As the seasons change and things green up, we’re falling more in love with the yard daily. One standout is a grafted maple with two different colored leaves that gives a beautiful view from our guest room window.
We waited a few weeks to post these photos, but azaleas just started blooming, so Sherry added a few flower shots to the end of this tour.
Now that you’ve seen these “before” photos and the weather is improving, we can start tackling outdoor projects—once Sherry’s allergies calm down (pollen season has been intense around here). We’ll take it slow and enjoy making the yard our own.
Update: This post was a little confusing for some readers, so we followed up with an updated post that includes a sketch and a video to clarify our plans.