The Backyard Oasis

The back yard is finally finished.  Actually it has been for about two weeks now but I just got around to loading the pictures.

Kevin did an amazing job.  It is almost all his vision and execution.  I did help plant things and dump a 1/2 ton of dirt via five gallon buckets but really it was mostly him.

Here is our little rockery with our wee baby plants that will hopefully grow bigger and stronger and hold in some of the dirt to keep it from washing into our pond.

Another view of the rockery and a better view of our awesome rock fountain.  214 lbs that bad boy is; not so fun to move.

The crab sitting by the pond?  His name is Sig. 

Neither of these photographs show it but Kevin made sure to craft a little shallow area at the end of the pond for a little bird beach.  Between the bird beach and the feeders they are some seriously happy birds.  Mortally wounded bird from last week not included.  I was sitting out last night and we had finches, juncos, chickadees, random little brown bird and a hummingbird all at the same time.  It was wonderful.

The other side of our wee yard.

The groundcover thyme took a beating during pond and rockery construction but it should bounce back.  We are also going to try to get it to grow over the edge of the pond to cover the exposed pond liner.  The wine barrel is our herb garden.

I would like to draw your attention to our trellis.  You might ask "what is that growing on the trellis"?  Well, the answer is "nothing" because the clematis we had on it is dead. The trellis itself is supplying all the greenery.  It is made from willow branches and the center branch that we stuck in the ground must have taken root because the "tree" has taken off like a wild thing.  We are growing a willow tree in our tiny back yard against our fence.  We know it can't stay there but we don't have the heart to do anything about it yet.  Currently it is about three feet above the fence line.  How can you kill something that has that much tenacity?

The zig zag patio was put in place strictly to make sweeping or vacuuming up bird seed easier.  I think it is kind of groovy.

Since it turned warm I finally got the courage to put my lemon tree impulse purchase outside and it is thriving.  What you can't really see in this picture are the wee tiny Meyer lemons it is growing.  The blossoms are about ready to burst into bloom any day now.  I am crossing my fingers we get at least one lemon off of it before we have to move it inside for the winter.