An Evening Tour Around Our Backyard Patio and Gardens
July 23, 2025
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Evening tour of our backyard patio and gardens!
It's been a few years since I've done a backyard garden and patio tour!
You can see how this space has changed by checking out this backyard tour from three years ago. This time I thought it would be cool to share this space in the evening, with the soft glow of our accent and landscape lighting.
Over the past few years I've worked on a few DIY projects in the backyard that I'll share.
This is our favorite place to be from the months of about April to October. At least when I'm not sweating bullets!
I already shared a look at our covered patio a few months ago:
That shaded spot is always lovely, especially with a light breeze going through.
About a year after moving into our house, we had a long patio added off the covered porch. It's a great spot for our outdoor dining table and a couple of other sitting areas:
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Usually by now our container flowers are starting to get a little crispy, but I've been babying them all summer. Thankfully they're still doing beautifully this season! :)
We purchased our dining table years ago, and I've given up on finding a remotely affordable outdoor table that lasts more than two years. It looks great from far away:
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| Find our scalloped outdoor umbrella here. |
The faux concrete tabletop on this one has cracked and I've had to refinish the wood base twice. The latter is to be expected, but the top falling apart is frustrating.
If you have recommendations for a decent outdoor dining table, please share!
We had an outdoor sectional in the other corner of the patio, but without a good place to store the cushions they were always getting soaked. We rarely sat on it because of that, so I passed it along to a friend.
This year we picked up this rocking chair and table set from Lowe's for that spot:
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| Tips for adding outdoor patio string lights. |
Storing four cushions is way easier than the ten we had, and we've found this fabric holds up crazy well to the rain. They dry out so quickly. We love rocking in the shade!
I picked up that giant cantilever umbrella from a friend who was getting rid of it last year. These things are GREAT if you don't have a lot of shade.
On the other side of the patio we have a circular portion:
This round concrete portion is about 14 feet across and we can easily fit eight Adirondack chairs:
I built the pit myself with a kit (and it was SUPER easy).
There are a few things to consider when building a fire pit so check out that linked post if you'd like to try this project yourself.
Check out how much those trees have grown in six years! Here's how this area started:
And here's another pic of how it looks now:
Those trees are arborvitaes and grow like mad, but you have to get the right version. A couple of years ago I shared a tour of the trees and plants in our backyard, along with the pros and cons of each.
If you're looking for inexpensive (compared to most evergreens) and fast growing trees, these are the absolute best. We've added them all over our landscaping!
I've already had to trim them up in our two walkways between the trees once this year, and I'll probably need to do it again before the end of the season.
I love our iron arbors over the two walkways, but it's getting a little tight! 😂
I wrapped these solar fairy lights around them and they turn on and off every evening by themselves. It's pretty magical. :)
If you come through from the fire pit area, you'll find our new addition through the trees:
We had a pool installed a few years ago and LOVE it. I didn't talk about it at the time because I just felt awkward blogging about it. Plus it all happened way faster than we thought it would. (We figured we'd be on a long wait list.)
This pool has been wonderful so many reasons, but I especially love that it makes us slow down a bit and just RELAX. It's been both a fun and very calming addition for our family:
We chose a fiberglass, saltwater pool and it's been very easy to maintain. If you have any questions feel free to email me.
There's a spot behind our house where our spigot is that was always so uneven and a mess. The grass didn't grow well because we used it as a walkway from the side of the house to the patio.
There was a lot of foot traffic here, so instead of having more concrete added I decided to make it over myself:
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| Find our 200 gallon deck box here. |
I spread a bunch of soil to even it out, then put a landscape liner down under a ton of pea gravel (that I added bag by bag...should have just had it delivered!).
The small plastic border I added does pretty well between the grass and gravel, but not so much with the mulch. This year I added a few extra stepping stones we had with some smaller stones to separate them even more.
I've lost track of all of the plants I've planted back here, and just this past week gathered a bunch more:
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| See our DIY potting bench tutorial! |
The strawberry plant on the left has been producing tons of berries...that are eaten by something every evening. I hope they're delicious! 😂
The tall plant on the right is a free peony I need to get planted right away, and I'm excited about the Autumn Joy Sedum in front of it that I got on clearance. I LOVE that plant in the fall and hope to find some more to add to it as well.
I'm on a mission to add as many native plants to our landscaping as I can, so I picked up the smaller pots from a local farmer the other day. I just need to find the perfect spot for all of them.
When we moved into our home we had a trampoline that we placed in the back corner of our yard. We added rocks underneath so we wouldn't have to move it to mow.
The trampoline is now long gone, and this spot is now the perfect area for my raised garden beds:
I only got to one last year, and finally assembled the other two put together earlier this summer. This is currently my favorite spot in our backyard -- it's so much fun to grow your own food!
I have herbs along the left, tomatoes and peppers in the middle and melons and cucumbers in the back right. All are doing SO well this year, I just love it.
I'd love to add a flower cutting garden somewhere next year!
We are so lucky to have this beautiful oasis of a backyard. We love to entertain and have hosted two large parties this summer -- everyone always gravitates to our backyard.
I love that our friends and family enjoy this space as much as we do. If you have any questions that I didn't cover, feel free to leave them in the comments below!
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Do you have a link to the outdoor rocking chairs? Wasn't able to find them on the Lowe's website.
ReplyDeleteThanks,
Helen
Yes I found them! Look up Kenwood wicker patio set. Hoepfully this link will work if you copy and paste: Kenwood 3 -Piece Wicker Patio Conversation Set with Gray Cushions https://www.lowes.com/pd/Style-Selections-Kenwood-3-Piece-Wicker-Patio-Conversation-Set-with-Gray-Cushions/5013569197
DeleteA pool!!!!! We are gonna need a whole blog post about it lol
ReplyDeleteHaha! I can add to this post if people have questions! :)
DeleteDo you have a link for your storage box ? I also have too many cushions !
ReplyDeleteYes! These are huge! You can copy and paste this and I'll add a clickable link in the post. https://amzn.to/3GJup4e
DeleteI recommend Polywood for a durable table!
ReplyDeleteI don't know why I didn't think of this! Great idea -- our Adirondack chairs are from them and they have held up SO WELL.
DeleteHi- how do you keep the edge between the grass and the mulch in that last picture? What type of trimmer?
ReplyDeleteI second this question.. and how do you keep weeds from coming up.. everywhere.
DeleteYour back yard is grander than the mostest; very nice!
ReplyDelete