Help! Design Challenged New Homeowner With Pool Backyard (flowers, lawn, landscape)
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I'm a totally design challenged first time homeowner in Los Angeles, CA area with a nice pool backyard but no ideas and about a $1500 budget.
Here are some pictures of our backyard, which is mostly concrete covered with a medium sized pool and 2 ugly dirt patches that used to hold bushes that we removed.
I'd be grateful for some ideas on how to make this backyard show its true potential! Not afraid to get my hands dirty!!
I don't have a lot of wonderful ideas but the first thing I thought of is it shouldn't be anything that grows too tall because you need to be able to look out the window and see if the people in the pool are safe. Water is expensive and I'm betting you don't want a lot of maintenance. I would do a boulder or 2 in the big space and fragrant flowers like jasmine. I'd probably plant tomatoes in the other space.
Go to your local garden supply/nursery company and ask for a planting plan, which they will often provide for free. Draw a general sketch of your yard-house-beds, indicate north/south, and list how many hours a day of strong sunlight each of those planting beds receives. Bring a couple handfuls of soil in a baggy, too, so they can tell how well draining the beds are.
It is a nice looking place and a little color and plant texture will go a long way toward making it gorgeous.
This is hard to read on my computer because the photo is too wide. Here are my suggestions. This is assuming a low budget.
1. Cover Overhead. The area seems exposed. If you can't squeeze in a tree with a wide canopy, some sort of pergola over the pool might work. This may be 2-5 grand depending on costs in your area.
2. Get rid of clutter. I'd throw away the fire pit and all of the plastic things in the yard.
3. Hide Clutter. They sell small sheds at big box stores. You can put the lawn furniture (if you keep it) and necessities in it. I'd buy a wood shed and stain it. Prob $1000 or less.
4. Make Repairs - Fix the concrete cracks and the missing pool tiles. This is probably something you can DIY decently well if you read up on how to do it and can find the right tile sizes. $50 - $150
5. Plants Or Gravel - I have a feeling that the combination of pool water and heat will kill almost anything that you plant in those little dirt circles. You can research and see if the there are plants that can survive there and not interfere with the plumbing and the concrete. Rocks may work. $100 - $200 River stones/pebbles in pool landscape? - Pools & Spas Forum - GardenWeb
6. Look at Pictures - Photos of similar spaces that you like can give you an idea of of what you want the place to look like. I'd recommend magazines and maybe even bookmarking photos online.
This is hard to read on my computer because the photo is too wide. Here are my suggestions. This is assuming a low budget.
1. Cover Overhead. The area seems exposed. If you can't squeeze in a tree with a wide canopy, some sort of pergola over the pool might work. This may be 2-5 grand depending on costs in your area.
2. Get rid of clutter. I'd throw away the fire pit and all of the plastic things in the yard.
3. Hide Clutter. They sell small sheds at big box stores. You can put the lawn furniture (if you keep it) and necessities in it. I'd buy a wood shed and stain it. Prob $1000 or less.
4. Make Repairs - Fix the concrete cracks and the missing pool tiles. This is probably something you can DIY decently well if you read up on how to do it and can find the right tile sizes. $50 - $150
5. Plants Or Gravel - I have a feeling that the combination of pool water and heat will kill almost anything that you plant in those little dirt circles. You can research and see if the there are plants that can survive there and not interfere with the plumbing and the concrete. Rocks may work. $100 - $200
[url=http://ths.gardenweb.com/forums/load/pools/msg0716131223424.html]River stones/pebbles in pool landscape? - Pools & Spas Forum - GardenWeb [/url]
6. Look at Pictures - Photos of similar spaces that you like can give you an idea of of what you want the place to look like. I'd recommend magazines and maybe even bookmarking photos online.
Backyard Makeover Goals:
Privacy
Hiding the ugly neighbor views
Drawing the eye away from the power lines/towers with colorful focal points
It looks like, when you stand on the back porch and look towards the pool, you're looking north towards the foothills and the morning sun is coming from the right(east) shading half the pool - so the left side of the pool will be shaded in the late afternoon by the neighbor's yellow garage. Thus each side of the property will get a half day of sun, while the center planter area will get full sun most of the day.
1. I see a rusty electric box in the planter bed. Have an electrician check it for safety/code and GFI turnoff. If it's the switch for the pool equipment/lights don't turn it on or use the pool when it's on until it's checked. Someone could get electrocuted. If it's an outlet, you could get a small Malibu light set and put lights it that bed. Cover the outlet and light box with one of those fake rock covers.
2. I'd replace the sprinkler turnoffs and hose faucet in the planters with shorter pipe so they will be hidden by the plants. Instead of spray sprinkler heads, cap them with a 4-line drip cap. Run the lines in a fan configuration over the area half-circle bed to slowly soak the flowers. One or 2 drip lines would be enough for the other bed. Spray heads it those small areas is overkill and a water waster.
3. Concrete in the right-end section of the rectangular bed that protrudes into the driveway area, and fix the cracked section of concrete there. If you don't fill it in, it will continue to get run over, as it's in line with the garage doors.
4. Don't be tempted to concrete in the 2 planter beds - you need them for drainage when it rains. I bet both the pool deck and the original patio slope towards those beds and that's why they left them there when they put in the pool and decking. If they did it right, they contain drain lines to the front of your property, but I doubt it. Nevertheless, if you filled them in, you'd have water flooding the area.
5. Paint all the patio/deck/driveway except the pool coping with concrete deck paint - a pale grey or sand or whatever you like, just so everything is the same uniform color and the stains are covered.
6. North wall: Let the hedge grow taller to block the view. Plan a Bougainvillea or 2 on the other side of the wall, keeping the trunk tightly pruned like a tree instead of a bush, while letting the top grow into a wide umbrella cascading over the wall onto your side. Since that looks like Edison's main grid corridor back there, you need to keep your plants up against your wall and well-pruned, out of their way. Miracle Grow every other week until it gets up and over the wall. Metal fence posts make strong and cheap stakes for keeping it where you want it. let it get tall enough to screen the view of that house behind you. Now you have a view of just the foothills and trees.
6. West wall: Hide the neighbor's garage wall by planting ivy and training it upwards. If there's enough room to plant in front of the ivy, put in some color plants, such as Vinca or whatever you like.
Hide the pool equipment with a lattice screen. You can buy one in plastic or wood, or make your own from premade lattice at the bigbox store. Do the same for the AC unit against the house. Arrange some potted plants in front of it.
Anchor each corner with a potted patio tree of your choice. This can be something blooming, or you could get dwarf citrus - lime, orange, lemon - they stay green year-round. Don't get anything messy that drops debris unless you really love netting the pool. The tree on the left will screen the view of that neighbor's house, plus give you privacy from them.
7. The back wall of your house: Screen the AC, add plants in pots - perhaps a tree rose or tree hibiscus at the corner. You could also add some sculpture pieces if you like - a cast bunny or ducks or cherub- or even a solar fountain/birdbath.
8. The little rectangular bed: Kitchen herb garden- whatever you like- parsley, basil, chives, etc.
9. The half-circle bed: Fill with full-sun flowers - something tall, some vertical spikes, some low daisy-like plants- whatever you like, mixing purple, blue, pink, yellow. I stole from here: www.bhg.com/gardening/plans/easy/sun-loving-garden-plan/
You can subscribe to get the plant names, or just look for stuff like that at the garden center.
10. Garage side wall: Kimberly Queen ferns- they don't shed. Plus pink impatiens. You also could put a trellis and blooming vine in the center, but I don't know how much sun it gets there, so I treated it as a shade area. More impatiens in that little area between the driveway and the block wall, and a hanging basket at the garage corner. I tried to put a lattice trellis there but it looked too big. If there is space for one there, it would be good to have a trellis and vine to screen the neighbor's window view.
Also, I see the garage gutter drains at the corner of the flower bed. That might make a mess in a heavy downpour. If that's the case, then put a small rain barrel at the corner and connect the downspout to it. Use it to water plants.
autravie has a lot of great suggestions.
I agree that your priorities should be to remove all clutter, camouflage the mechanicals, and screen the neighbor's big orange wall. It might be necessary to remove a bit of concrete there in order to make your beds big enough to support some nice tall bushes.
Some ferns or semi-shade loving plants would be nice next to your garage. I would be tempted to put a palm tree in the larger bed, because I think it will add a tropical feel and some visual height. Not sure if this would cause a mess in the pool though.
After this, I would stand back and see if I wanted to put anything besides stones in the rectangular bed.
OP will have a lot of fun with this one. Don't forget to post some after photos.
One point that Autrevie made that isn't a good idea at all since it's the neighbor's garage the ivy would be growing on: Quote: West wall: Hide the neighbor's garage wall by planting ivy and training it upwards.
If you ask any of the true gardeners on this gardening site, they'll all tell you to NEVER plant ivy. It is near impossible to get rid of once it starts spreading and I don't think your neighbors would appreciate it climbing up their garage and onto the roof. Maybe planting cedars along there would be better to hide that wall?
Well I notice the washer and dryer sitting out in the open. Are they going to stay there ? You might want to put a roof over them to protect them. I do think a simple porch area maybe screened in if you get mosquitos would be nice.
Also under and near the slide maybe some sort of padding for protection from falling on the hard concrete.
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