We last left our jungle-like backyard after transplanting and removing one giant 15′ garden bed and leveling it in hopes of growing a lush lawn. We’re back with another backyard update — yes, we spent the weekend getting muddy (and no, I still don’t have Madonna arms), but a third round of bushwhacking might do the trick. Like any other room in the house, the yard is a project that has to be tackled in phases, especially since each phase leaves you sore. Still, there’s something deeply satisfying about spending a few hours digging in the soil while the baby naps and Burger supervises from the windowsill: there’s a visible change at the end of the work.
This time we took on the second 15′ bed and removed about half of the path-blocking liriope that had overrun the walkway. That stuff gets so dense it makes your legs itch if you walk past it in shorts — just thinking about it makes me cringe. In the photo you can see the back section we hadn’t dug out yet, where the path appears only about three inches wide.
After our work we gained roughly 6–8″ of walking space on each side of the path, which translates to about 12–16″ of cleared walkway once both sides are finished. That’s a huge improvement in usability and comfort — no more leg-itching on the way to the patio.
We moved the dug-up liriope to the side yard where it’s already thriving in large swaths; that area actually looks great when the liriope runs free, so we’re happy to let it colonize that spot.
Digging up liriope is hard work. John started on the removal while I trimmed down the second 15′ planting bed. Our method for tackling large beds has been to trim everything back first, then dig out the roots to either transplant or remove plants completely. John attacked the liriope with a shovel, using the jump-on-the-shovel technique to lift the roots and make sure they don’t regrow next spring. J-Boom definitely put his back into it.
Once I’d trimmed the bed, we teamed up and worked from opposite ends — I started at the far side while John began where he had been — and we met in the middle. We wanted to get at least one of the leg-tickling sides cleared before Clara woke from her nap, and we even had time to fill in the holes left by the liriope by raking dirt from bare spots near the woods at the back of our lot. No giant pits left behind — whew.
The change from this angle is dramatic. Previously, your view stopped at the big planting bed just beyond the side patio; now your eye goes all the way back to the pretty maple on the far side of the yard. It genuinely looks like a backyard now instead of a dense thicket.
We still have a few more strips of liriope to remove and the remaining 15′ bed to level before seeding, but this was a productive afternoon. Reclaiming a little bit of yard is surprisingly satisfying, especially with the recent temperate weather — not too hot, not too cold.
It’s a little tricky to orient folks because our backyard has so many similar trees and shrubs, so here’s the before-and-after view just beyond the patio. If you walk about four steps forward from the next set of photos and turn 90 degrees left, you’ll see the same shift in sightlines.
Back when I sketched a rough rendering of our lot, you could see where the brick paths run and where the two 15′ garden beds sat in the back. The old sketch doesn’t show our deck addition, which now fills the narrow alley between the original house and the 1970s addition. If everything goes according to plan, one more phase of bushwhacking will remove the remaining path-encroaching liriope, level out the trimmed bed, and let us seed a nice carpet of grass.
We love having a wooded lot behind the house, but we’re also suckers for a clear swath of lawn up front for the baby and Burger to run around on. It calls back to our first house’s backyard, where spring brought a ridiculously green lawn with woods beyond — grass in front and woods in back is our ideal backyard “mullet.” Although our current lawn will be shallower than at our old place, half the depth is fine: plenty of room to play and less to mow and rake.
How about you — did you spend the weekend digging in the yard too, hoping for a long kid nap while you work? We’ll keep you posted as we finish the rest of the beds and seed everything for a greener backyard.