We spent most of Sunday working in the yard — about four hours total, split between naps and shifts watching Clara. The goal was simple: turn a huge, weedy planting bed into usable lawn. That oversized bed chewed up a big chunk of our backyard, leaving only tiny slivers of grass for Burger and the others to run around in. In pictures it looks large, but in person it felt even bigger: the bed is at least fifteen feet wide, and the main butterfly bush towers around eight or nine feet tall.
To give you an idea of scale, here’s me — 5’2” — standing in the middle of that enormous butterfly bush. Yes, standing upright. It was obvious we needed to move it if we wanted to reclaim lawn space.
Viewed from the other side of the yard, the planting bed still dominates the scene. While we love the butterflies the massive butterfly bush attracts, transplanting it farther back into the property felt like the best way to create a dedicated butterfly garden while opening up more grass in the main yard.
First step: prune everything way back. Cutting it down hard doesn’t harm the plants — they die back naturally in colder months anyway — but it makes digging far easier and safer since you can see the root systems without getting poked in the eye by woody stems.
Once trimmed, it became clear the huge shrub wasn’t one plant but several smaller bushes that had merged into one sprawling thicket. Think Transformers, but in shrub form. That discovery made the transplanting simpler: we dug out individual root balls and moved them to the far-back “wild and woodsy” area we want to develop into a butterfly haven.
After the transplant, we cleared the remaining weeds and roots so the ground would be level with the surrounding lawn — a necessary step before seeding new grass to avoid bumps and unevenness. During the digging we unearthed a huge tree root, which made us think a large tree must have once stood where the planting bed now sits. That explains the scale of the original bed.
John also found a tiny snake on his shovel while we worked — it was no bigger than a worm, so not threatening, but enough to prompt a double-take. Small wildlife is part of garden work, especially when you’re digging deep.
We removed a bunch of border stones that once rimmed the bed and carried them to the carport. I hauled most of them myself and joked about dreaming of Madonna-like arms while doing so. Rather than stack them, we plan to sell the stones to neighbors for a small sum — they’re happy to pick them up for a dollar apiece and that should help finance grass seed and other supplies for the backyard makeover.
Next we used flat shovels and rakes to level the soil so it’s ready for seeding. Flattening the area is essential for a smooth lawn surface and good seed-to-soil contact. The dirt looked much cleaner and more manageable after a few hours of work.
After our four-hour session of pruning, digging, transplanting, hauling, and raking, the difference was immediate: a large, level swath ready for grass seed. It’s satisfying to see how removing that single planting bed opens up the backyard and vastly improves usable outdoor space.
There’s still another enormous butterfly bush on the other side of the liriope-lined path, so this is only Part 1 of the backyard project. We also plan to remove the liriope that’s creeping into the path so the yard feels cohesive when finished. It’s a lot of digging, but we think the end result will be dramatic and well worth the effort — similar to the transformation we achieved with our front yard makeover.
We worked on this area on and off through the spring and hope to put more time into it this fall. It will take a while to match the front yard’s neatness, but progress is motivating — the before-and-after shots already show a big change. Small, steady improvements are turning this space into a true backyard makeover in the making.
How about you — did you get outside and get a little dirty this weekend? Any garden surprises or wildlife encounters?
Psst — John’s gearing up for his annual health challenge, Aquatober, which he explains over on Young House Life. Stay tuned for that coverage.