Backyard/patio layout advice please
Hi all, hoping to sense check our preliminary backyard layout while we are meeting potential contractors so we can get more accurate estimates. I might need a better drawing, but thought I’d at least get some initial thoughts. Hope you all can read my chicken scratch! Each square is 2ft (not1).
Some background: My husband & I (and dog) live in a coastal town in Southern California, 10min from beach. Amazing outdoor weather! Our current backyard is pretty big for CA, half dead grass and a 1980 ugly patio & pergola. Our wish list is a new paver patio, patio cover/pergola (part solid, part open), a spool large hot tub!), fire pit, and outdoor kitchen.
Oh, and we are up in the foothills so we have a view! City lights and ocean (although far away). It’s off the side of our backyard to the left when looking at the layout, so we want the spool and fire pit to look out and have a focus that direction, if that makes sense.
Hope the layout makes sense! Any suggestions, ideas, questions are welcome. Thank you so much!!! :)
Comments (24)
PROYardvaark
3 years agodonnatrus
3 years agoRelated Discussions
Feedback please on backyard rough layout design?
Comments (34)Of course one does also need to consider the spatial functions when designing a garden, but it is not necessarily wrong to design around what plants you want as well. I was just reading the notes of a garden lecture that the famous Brazilian landscape architect, Roberto Burle Marx, gave when he was doing a lecture tour back in 1982 both here in California and England, and he stated that he ALWAYS starts any new design by thinking about the plants he wants to use, FIRST! If that is good enough for one of the most revered modern designers in the world, it also works for me. It does need to be said that this requires some cautions; it helps if one is wanting to use plants that can actually work in your climate, and that will be able to combine together well. These intended plants will need to be vetted against your existing conditions, your intended level of maintenance, amount of water and fertilizing you intend to provide and/or make sense in your situation. As you can see, there is a lot more to designing around plants first than simply coming up with a list that pleases you. Right off the bat, it is more apparent that you will probably have some strong winds in your location, and using things like a Japanese Maple which tends to get burnt leaf edges in hot and/or drying winds would probably only work well up against the house where it is more protected. The distant views looking out over the right side neighbor's fence might also be something you want to keep? If so, planting something that only gets about 5 feet taller than the fence, and kept closer in to the midpoint of the fence would help preserve a view of the distant mountains while still blocking the sight line of the building visible in the distance, but then again, maybe keeping distant views of the surrounding mountains is not important to you from the ground level, but more privacy is. You look to have good opportunities to plant climbing roses against the fences/walls at the north side in particular, where they would get the most sun. Or it could also be an opportunity for other flowering vines that are more evergreen in your intended color range, there are pink/white tinged Bougainvilleas such as 'Blushing Thai' or pink vines such as Pandorea jasminoides 'Rosea', or a deep purple winter blooming vine such as Hardenbergia violacea. Other even longer blooming vines that are evergreen might include a Passiflora 'Lavender Lady', or the semi-shrubby scandent Plumbago auriculata 'Royal Cape/Imperial Blue', which can be pruned to stay flat against a wall. I also quite like the densely foliaged Grewia occidentalis, Lavender Star Flower shrub, especially when grown flat against a wall, and blooms nearly year round. Climbing roses that are quite easy in southern California would include Altissimo(deep single red), Iceberg(white), Mermaid(yellow) and the already mentioned Joseph's Coat(a vivid red-orange), but there are many more, and it mostly depends on whether you want one massive bloom spike or repeat blooms throughout the year. Combining Mediterranean flowering shrubs such as the various Rosemaries(upright or spreading), along with various Lavenders, perhaps some similar lower growing plants like Teucriums, Convolvulus mauritanicus, Armeria, etc could be a good choice for a lower water using part of the garden with more sun. Other shrubs that might work well in this mix could include fragrant foliage of Coleonema pulchrum 'Sunset Gold', Erysimmon 'Bowles Mauve', Helleborus argutifolius. If you like the idea of evergreen iris as an accent, I would highly recommend the less commonly seen iris relative from Brazil, called the Walking Iris, Neomarica caerulea, which blooms for about 6 weeks in mid summer with brilliantly blue flowers on top of 4 to 5 foot tall stems, and is a very dramatic accent foliage plant even when not in bloom. Other Iris members that have great foliage as well as blooms might include Iris pallida 'Argentea Variegata', along with other classic Bearded Iris cultivars. It might look very nice nestled within a lower mass of silvery foliage of a Lavender angustifolia 'Hidcote', or one of the Helichrysum petiolare 'Limelight'. Some grassy leaved plants in groupings, such as Leymus condensatus 'Canyon Prince'(tall and pale blue),or dwarfer Dianella revoluta 'Baby Bliss' or the deep greens of Zephranthes candida can also liven up a garden. Other taller growing sculptural grassy plants might include some of the Restios such as Chondropetalum tectorum or Elegia canpensis, both of which give wonderful movement in the wind and look good combined with flowering herbaceous things. If you wanted a few very fast growing shrubs that can also act as small trees in the garden, with long bloom seasons, I might suggest Psoralea pinnata or Lavatera thuringeaca 'Barnsley'. Some of the larger growing, virtually everblooming Salvia species such as Salvia leucantha 'Santa Barbara', S. 'Waverly', S. 'Indigo Spires' or S. involucrata are all very long blooming in the garden. As you can see, there are a million ways you can go with planting choices in your garden, these are just a few things that come to mind if you want things that grow well/easily in your area, have a long season of interest, and might combine to give a blues/purples/pinks range of colors over a long season, with accents of soft blue and silvery foliage. If you like the idea of interesting color/texture ground covers that continue the lower water use theme, you might also look into the wonderful silvery low growing Dichondra argentea, Dymondia margaratae, or Ophiopogon japonicus. One of the low growing Iceplants, such as the silvery foliaged Oscularia deltoides, or the Hens and Chicks, Echeveria elegans or Echeveria imbricata also make good massed ground cover plantings....See MoreSuggestions for layout of tiny backyard, please!
Comments (1)I don't think a deck will work in this situation but the link below should give you some ideas on what is possible is a small space. You can probably get more hits if you do a search on the houzz site using the words 'small yard patio grass'. Here is a link that might be useful: [pics[(https://www.houzz.com/photos/home-design-ideas-phbr0-bp~)...See MoreI found an old Concord Grape vine in my backyard Need advice please
Comments (4)The two branches are cordons from which new shoots will form. You could train the cordons across a wire and let them produce new canes. Each cane will produce more canes. Grape clusters don't grow on old wood. So this year, when the vine goes dormant, look for strong new canes, Choose 2-4 good ones. Get rid of the rest. The good canes should have many buds. Starting at the base, count 5-8 buds and prune off the rest. Within each dormant bud resides one cluster and a new cane. This process repeats over and over as the years pass. If your vine is becoming a monster, there is no reason that you can't summer prune. Just make sure you leave enough on each cane so you will have fruit next year. Go to you tube. Lots of videos. Search Pruning Concord Grapevines....See MoreBackyard landscaping advice please
Comments (2)We had a flagstone patio. We found it to be a trip hazard. We used pavers and like them....See More- PRO
Yardvaark
3 years agolast modified: 3 years ago donnatrus
3 years agoOk I re-drew it. Hopefully this is better. :) The version I posted originally was really just me playing with the space so understandable that it wasn’t clear! Patio is all 1 level. But not sure if spool should be raised or flush. Also, FYI- latest sun due to slope and trees) is basically where it says ‘covered patio’ and those 2 lounge chairs. That’s where I’ll be!
A few questions.. do we have good patio space for room to move? Good placement of spool and fire pit? Good placement of dining and conversation areas or should these be switched? Any other thoughts or ideas welcome!
Thanks in advance!
- PRO
donnatrus
3 years agoYardvaark, thank you!! That’s exactly what I was hoping for. Yea, I threw in the wavy path bc I thought we needed some curves. I originally had it straight. I do plan to add planters and pots. I love plants and flowers.
And I definitely like 2nd option with fire pit so we have our view. Here’s my view from my current inflatable hot tub on our current patio (basically where the convo area is).
Great point about equipment. Behind the pizza oven should work!
And good point about the dining table. I forgot that a post would be there. Plus it’s in front of the fixed part of a slider so not sure about that. I could swap the dining and convo area?
Thanks again!! Really appreciate it!!
donnatrus
3 years agodonnatrus
3 years agoMade some edits. What about this? Spool equipment will be somewhere behind the pizza oven.
Question re: pizza oven location: is this too random? Or could we make it a focal point? It’s also far from the kitchen area but it can’t be close to house or blocking view. Any other ideas for it? Thanks!!
donnatrus
3 years agoOk, apparently had the depth of our yard wrong. Re-measured and brought things a bit closer to house. Also swapped dining and convo areas.
Thoughts anyone? Would welcome any advice! Thx!! :)
donnatrus
3 years ago
Embothrium
3 years agolast modified: 3 years agodonnatrus
3 years agodonnatrus
3 years ago
gardengal48 (PNW Z8/9)
3 years ago- PRO
Yardvaark
3 years agolast modified: 3 years ago
There is nothing necessarily advantageous or better about having straights or curves. You just need to make them all work together in the end.In the prior iteration, I'm addressing fitting the circular element in with straight lines in a more flowing way. I didn't address tweaking other areas to that change because I don't know the site particulars (whether the level change is a step up or a step down.) The circular shape does invite/suggest that nearby corners, underneath, be circular, too. Adding a radius to the "planting bed" is no problem. But because of furniture in the lounge area, there's a conflict. It might be eased if you can expand the area near the house by another couple of feet, as it seems tight overall.. (Another issue I have in exploring this further, is that I don't know what is proposed and what is existing.)
donnatrus
3 years agoThank you gardengal and Yardvaark!
Everything that is existing will be torn down. It’s awful. So starting with a clean slate! All flat, one level. We can definitely extend the patio cover out further. I like the idea of curves around planting beds. This was the back of the house when we bought 4 years ago. Grass does not look like this!!
- PRO
Yardvaark
3 years ago donnatrus
3 years ago- PRO
Yardvaark
3 years ago donnatrus
3 years agoHi Yardvaark,
3 reasons: 1) my understanding is that a wood burning pizza oven has to be at least 10ft from the house. 2) our side yard is narrow but enough for vehicle access. We don’t want anything in the way. 3) We might be able to put it under the patio cover but we also don’t want to block our view (city/ocean). Right now, I can see the Pacific from our patio. We don’t want a big pizza oven on that side to block our view.
So I think either along the back fence or on the other side with back to shed. We’ll see what our builders say too!
Thanks! Here are some photos.
- PRO
Yardvaark
3 years ago donnatrus
3 years ago
Yardvaark