The beginning of it all

I'm a new homeowner with a blank slate for a backyard! I also don't have a lot of left over money for landscaping so I'm planning to DIY a lot of it. I'm going to use this blog to archive my landscaping journey, maybe get some attention for my project, and field ideas from the internet masses! If anyone actually notices this blog anyway. Who knows, I might even inspire someone else's DIY adventure. 

Truth be told, I had no idea where to start so I spent a lot of time on Pinterest and perusing Google for ideas. I stumbled across Julie Foster at Foster Design Works and I was able to download a 12 page guide on planning your landscaping design. There's a lot of very helpful tips in there. I was able to come up with a rough idea for what I wanted to do with help of that guide, which gave me some direction on what I plan to do with my yard. I used Photoshop to do a quick sketch of what I wanted, but it suggested you buy various design materials to draw out your plan on paper. Photoshop worked for me because you can use layers, but some people prefer the hand drawn method.

It turns out that there is a LOT that I want to do with my yard... So I know it isn't all going to happen at once. I'll include the design I worked on for reference. I can already tell that there are a few small things I'm going to change or add, but overall it will be the idea I scribbled out. In the meantime I grabbed some supplies at Lowe's and created a small cinder block stair case (which means the stairs I had planned are already smaller than the design) and planted a little shrub next to them. I'll talk about that in another post.

I hope Julie's landscaping guide helps someone else who's in the process of trying to figure out their own backyard makeover, it certainly helped me get the process going! Until next time <3