Before and after: 6 years making a garden
Bluesy garden: our upper patio, just off the living room and master bedroom
It’s always eye-opening to see how much a garden has evolved by comparing before and after images. We moved into our current home in October 2008, and I started tinkering with a few beds right away, planting old favorites dug up from my former garden, and simply observing other areas to see what I had. As anyone knows who’s made a garden, it’s a process that takes years, especially if you frequently revise plantings, as I do.
I didn’t draw out a plan for this garden, even though I recommend it and did one for my former garden. Instead I worked on one area at a time, tackling whatever demanded my immediate attention and saving up for bigger projects along the way. The garden is and always will be a work in progress, but 6-1/2 years is long enough to see changes taking shape and plants maturing.
Just a few days after moving in, I wrote an introductory post about our new home. I’m reposting those “before” pictures here, followed by “after” pics I took yesterday morning from the same perspective. I offer the contrast not to show “improvements” but simply to illustrate the process of making it my own. After all, taste is subjective, and the serene, green, easy-care “before” garden not only enticed us to buy this house but may be preferable to many people over my densely planted, spiky style. I’m grateful for the garden we inherited and am enjoying putting my own stamp on it for as long as we’re its caretakers.
Before: The front entry of our 1971 ranch right after we moved in 6-1/2 years ago
After: We added architectural interest to the facade and the low, steeply pitched roof with a gabled porch roof addition. Poured-concrete slabs in an offset pattern replaced the narrow, down-sloping, tiled front walk, eliminating a step in the process. The lawn and foundation shrubs at left are gone, switched out for a water-thrifty gravel garden. The old aluminum windows are refreshed with new, efficient double panes, and we took down the shutters for a more contemporary look. New paint and updated porch lights complete the refresh. The aging roof, which was patched when the porch roof was altered, is next on our list.
Before: Pretty but traditional-style landscaping and a lawn showing signs of drought stress
After: My containerized spikefest, with ‘Alphonse Karr’ bamboo replacing a redbud in the back corner
Before: A species Japanese maple, which I immediately fell in love with but worried would need too much water
After: Not to worry — the Japanese maple has thrived in the shade on the north side of the house, and all I’ve had to do is prune it for shape. A dry stream channeling water away from the foundation runs between the maple and the native river ferns in the foreground. I also had the back fence moved toward the front corner of the house.
Before: The island bed in the center of the circular drive was cloaked in creeping jasmine and purple lantana.
After: Today a xeric garden of yuccas, euphorbias, grasses, and other drought-tolerant plants grows there. A stepping-stone path runs across the berm (hidden by plants in this view) for access.
Before: In back, the swimming pool and private, tree-shaded lot was one of the selling points of the house for us, as our children were the perfect ages to enjoy it.
After: The large gum bumelia tree behind the pool died in the drought, opening up the area to more sun. I added painted stucco walls last fall for structure and color.
Before: Limestone retaining walls near the pool offered gardening space off the back of the house. I was eyeing this bed from day one for the ‘Whale’s Tongue’ agave I’d brought from my former garden.
After: Today Moby is happily growing in that spot and at least twice as big as he was when I moved him. I added terracing to the bed and removed the grass below it to expand the garden. The ocotillo bottle tree replaced a more stylized version last summer.
Before: A cluster of live oaks at the bottom of the garden was set off with edging of casually stacked limestone.
After: Today Mexican honeysuckle grows under the trees, and one of the new stucco walls adds structure in front.
Before: Looking up-slope along the west side of the property. A red-tip photinia hedge along a chain-link fence screened the neighbor’s pool from ours.
After: For more privacy, we had a fence constructed in front of the hedge. I removed the lawn on this side of the yard and replaced it with garden beds and a terraced, gravel path (like this path, which I laid on the other side of the yard).
Before: Behind the pool, slabs of exposed limestone make a natural floor. A shaggy bed of liriope and purple heart edged the back of the pool.
After: The limestone hasn’t changed a bit, although I have to beat back the purple heart, which wants to take over. (The standing water is from the previous night’s heavy rain.) The stucco walls and stacked-stone retaining wall behind the pool are new. I’ve planted ‘Blonde Ambition’ grama and Texas sedge in place of the liriope, which died away during the drought.
Before: I was pleased to discover a Mexican buckeye in the garden. Cast-iron plant was welcome too.
After: The buckeye has continued to mature, and my main job is pruning once a year for shape. The cast-iron plant is still there as well, behind a large, potted Texas nolina parked on one of the limestone slabs as a focal point along the lower-garden path. Dwarf Barbados cherries make a low hedge at right.
Before: Looking across the swimming pool toward the back of the house, where terraced limestone walls hold narrow garden beds. At first I worried that I’d have to remove the large Texas persimmon, which was encroaching on the house.
After: Regular pruning has allowed the persimmon to remain, and I enjoy its white-gray bark and graceful, leaning form. Aside from the persimmon and a crepe myrtle (at right), every single plant here has been replaced. From this angle it doesn’t seem like a significant bed. But it’s crucial to the experience of exploring the garden because the main path runs between this wall and the pool.
Before: A lengthwise view along the terraced bed shows a ‘Dortmund’ rose on a cedar-post support, which was nice.
After: But the rose bloomed only for a short time, and the rest of the year it was not very attractive. So I removed it and planted up the area with bold, variegated foliage plants, like ‘Alphonse Karr’ bamboo, ‘Bright Edge’ yucca, and ‘Color Guard’ yucca. A stock-tank planter that was a small container pond in my former garden was turned into a planter for height here. Two blue pots bring extra height and color.
Before: I liked the large, fuchsia-flowering crepe myrtle near the back deck. The white-trunked Texas persimmon is just behind it.
After: I widened the bed around the crepe myrtle and installed a disappearing fountain with a shallow basin to entice birds.
Before: We inherited a nice deck off the back of the house, with lattice screening at the base.
After: I soon widened the planting bed at its base. At first it was a trial spot for various plants, but over time I simplified and massed the plants for impact. We also restained the deck and lattice screening dark gray.
Before: I loved the limestone slabs jutting from the lawn here and there, although I worried that it meant the garden would be rocky and hard to dig.
After: Happily, the soil is fairly deep except right around the boulders, so digging hasn’t been a problem. I made a garden around these boulders and incorporated the flatter stones on the left into a terraced timber-and-gravel path. We pushed back the fence, visible at top-left in the “before” photo, to the front of the house to get more privacy and gardening space in back.
Before: Another boulder, shaped like a turtle head, jutted out of the concrete pool patio. A stepping-stone path led from the pool to the deck steps.
After: Here’s a wider view of the same area. The turtle-head rock is in the foreground. I laid a flagstone path in place of the stepping stones. And at right, in one of the earliest parts of the garden, I installed an 8-foot diameter stock-tank pond and laid a sawn-stone path in a sunburst shape around it. This is one of my favorite parts of the garden, and the circular pond and surrounding sunburst path look especially nice from the elevated deck.
Before: I admired the coyote fence along the back property line. Shaggy cedar posts were wired to an old chain-link fence for privacy and a woodsy look that harmonized with the greenbelt beyond the fence.
After: A few of the cedar posts have rotted, but most are hanging in there. We’ll definitely replace them as needed to retain this look. Other noticeable changes include the stucco walls and the loss of the gum bumelia tree.
Before: I liked the wide, decomposed-granite path in the lower garden.
After: But under all those trees it quickly grew overgrown with oak sprouts and ligustrum seedlings and was buried in leaf litter. So I mulched over the path for a more natural look and ran a stepping-stone path instead. I also removed the pineapple guavas that were planted along the back fence. They suffered in the drought and also from lack of sunlight. Various plants have taken their place.
Before: Looking up toward the pool patio from the lower garden path. A rock-strewn, narrow, grassy slope provided trip-hazard access to the lower garden.
After: Initially I used found rocks in the garden to build steps between the lower garden and the pool. But last fall I was able to redo the steps with large boulders while having the stucco walls built.
Before: Another limestone expanse between the lawn and the lower garden
After: The limestone’s still there (at right), but the lawn is long gone.
There were other parts of the move-in garden I didn’t show in that introductory 2008 post because they weren’t particularly interesting — just large areas of lawn. But I worked on those too over the years and today enjoy gardens where there used to be just grass. Here’s a quick run-through.
This is one of the more recent parts of the garden: the east side path and garden. I started out with a decomposed-granite path and garden beds for grassy, deer-resistant plants. More recently I had the lattice fence built for a sense of enclosure.
Earlier this spring I made mirrored trellises to add depth to the long, blank wall of the garage, staining them to match the new-stained fence.
Looking lengthwise across the front yard, the dominant feature is a Berkeley sedge lawn. A giant hesperaloe anchors one end near a cluster of live oaks. A broad, curving path of decomposed granite leads through the front garden.
The same view in reverse, from the driveway looking toward the lattice fence. The meadowy sedge lawn at right needs much less water than a traditional lawn and mowing only once or twice a year.
Closer to the house, I had a limestone retaining wall built to tame a slippery slope on a natural berm alongside the driveway and foundation. It gave the house room to breathe and opened up space for additional pathways through the garden.
On the west side of the garden, I took out all but one small, semicircular patch of lawn and planted a deer-resistant garden of irises, grasses, dyckia, sotol, and yucca.
Finally, as you enter the back garden on the west side, you pass through a work/storage space and then come to the upper patio, along one edge of which I built this cinderblock wall planter filled with succulents.
I’m kind of tired now as I think back through all these garden projects, and my wallet feels a lot lighter. But it’s more rewarding than buying clothes, jewelry, or a car, so what can I say? I love to make gardens! I hope you’ve enjoyed the retrospective. As you busily make your own garden, remember to take photos and document the process so you can look back and see all you’ve accomplished.
All material © 2006-2015 by Pam Penick for Digging. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited.
Wow! Seeing all of the before and after shots back to back shows how busy you have been these six years. You created quite a garden.
I’ve been busier than I realized, Michael. Looking back at move-in pictures really brings it home. —Pam
Really an amazing job! I’d be tired too!!
I’ve had a frenzy of projects over the last couple of years, but I think the big stuff is done. Maybe. 😉 —Pam
This makes your garden look huge! So many different parts to discover. Your ‘Moby’ is awesome! Congratulations on such a great garden, it looks like you put so much effort into it, and so worth it!
Thanks, Renee. You can’t see the whole garden at once, which makes it feel larger than it really is. The lot is one-third of an acre. —Pam
Nice retrospective of the garden–good work all around!
Thanks, Tina. It was surprisingly instructive to write this post and see whether my initial impressions held or whether I changed my mind about things as time went by. —Pam
Oh I do love me some before and after shots. Always have. Especially in a year such as this one, when newly completed projects are often best enjoyed in the form of viewing photos on the computer screen, away from rain showers (or mosquitoes).
Your gardens are lovely, clearly reflecting your locale, taste and preferences, as a good garden should. You’ve made a lot of progress in a fairly short time, and I hope your family is appropriately grateful for your time and energies expended there, as I’m sure those spaces enhance all of their lives on a daily basis.
I am noticing (with envy!) a large black elevated outdoor fan by one of your seating areas. I hope you won’t mind my asking – is that locally sourced? Did you have it specially installed? It looks like a perfect answer to still and/or buggy times when you might still want to enjoy actually BEING outside, as opposed to looking outside.
Well gardened, lady, well gardened!
Deb, the fan is a summer savior. I bought it online from QC Supply last summer, and it made a big difference in our enjoyment of the lower patio. It oscillates and moves a lot of air. I use it only on low speed because the higher speeds are loud. But low speed is still nice and breezy.
At first we DIY-mounted it on a tree trunk that leaned out over a path, so every time we walked the path, or visitors did, we had to duck. This spring, when I had a landscape crew here for another job, I asked them to mount it on a metal post for us. I’m liking it even better now. —Pam
I enjoyed this post so much. I didn’t realize how many enormous limestone boulders you had strewn throughout the garden. You’re right, it’s good to keep records and to look back every so often at what you’ve done. I’d rather have a garden full of interesting plants than clothes, jewelry or a car too. Am I correct in thinking that when you started the Fling you were still in your previous home and garden, so very few Flingers have seen this one?
That’s correct, Alison. The first Garden Bloggers Fling was held in April 2008, and I hosted a happy hour gathering in my garden (really fun, by the way!). By that summer, DH and I were thinking of moving, and we moved into our current house in early October 2008. —Pam
It’s just beautiful and very inspiring!
Thanks, Sheila. 🙂 —Pam
Ahhhh, I love before-and-afters! And congratulations on getting the rest of the fence stained with all of this rain we’ve been having!
I hired it out, Lori. They got it done in 1-1/2 days of miraculously clear weather. It would have taken me 4 or 5 days at the rate I was going, and I don’t think we’ve had 4 or 5 days of non-rainy weather in weeks! —Pam
thanks for the tour! I enjoy before and after photos… much inspiration in them. Your yard is so lovely!
Thanks, Cheryl. —Pam
This is tremendous, thank you so much for posting it in such great detail with before and after pictures! It’s so hard to see how to get from “here” to “there” when you’re staring at your yard. I’d have been totally intimidated by all that rock, and you didn’t just work around it but you incorporated it into the garden so it looks naturally gorgeous.
I could ask a thousand questions, but the 2 most pressing in my mind are:
1) Do you recommend planting purple heart? I love the color and that it will grow in shade, but I hear a lot about it taking over.
2) Do you have fire ant problems with your cinderblock planter? I was tempted to build one and then saw a post by a woman in Houston who’d built one and discovered she’d basically created a fire ant sanctuary.
Thanks again for your time and willingness to share your garden!
Wendy, the key with rock is seeing it as an asset and framing it with garden beds or paths. Just sticking up out of a lawn, it looks a little strange, plus then you have to mow around it.
I do recommend purple heart as an easy-care and lovely groundcover for light shade. But only plant it where you want a solid mat because it’s aggressive. For the first few years we lived here I enjoyed the purple heart so much I left it alone, and it eventually completely covered those limestone boulders behind the pool. Well, that was no good. So I’ve been beating it back a few times a year to keep it in the beds.
As for the cinderblock planter, no, I’ve never had trouble with fire ants or any ants. It sits on a patio, so maybe that helps. For safety reasons, this sort of thing needs a solid foundation: an existing patio or compacted paver base. That might be enough to deter ants, but if not perhaps lining the base with weed fabric would be added protection. —Pam
Regarding fire ants, I would also add that you will typically not see fire ants in yards that don’t have lawns such as Pam’s. At least that’s been my experience.
When I opened my feeder to see who was posting today the first picture popped up with a gigantic splash of blue. I knew this was going to be a good one. I so thoroughly enjoyed the before and afters. I try to do this more now. I wish I had done more befores in the beginning of this garden odyssey I call Greenbow. You have made your garden and home a real showcase.
Thanks, Lisa. Blogging gives us plenty of opportunities for “before” and “during” pictures, doesn’t it? —Pam
I love all the stone in your garden & really love the the before & after shots.
I’m glad you enjoyed the post, Jen! —Pam
Your current garden has a much more natural look, as well as being fully infused by your personality. I love all the touches of cobalt blue throughout that tie the diverse areas of the garden together. I’m also comforted by your description of your approach as my own has followed a similar path. However, I lack your wonderful “before” photos – the closest equivalent I have is a series my brother did around the first anniversary of our move. Thanks for the before and after tour!
If you have your original house listing you might find “before” pictures there, Kris. But even if not, it’s never too late to take lots of pictures since we gardeners never stop making changes. 🙂 —Pam
A really lovely transformation- seeing the befores and afters is very helpful.
How did you remove your creeping jasmine? I have to do the same and am wondering how best to tackle it. Thanks.
I hired two guys to take it out, Ellen, and they hacked it out by the roots with scythe-like tools. They did a great job too. —Pam
What a tour! It is so nice to see everything and how each area transitions to the next. Your gardens are amazing and so inspiring! Thank you for all you do and share. 🙂
Thank you, Heather! It was fun for me to make this post and really see all the changes too. —Pam
Fascinating to read and see the transformation Pam, and beautiful results you have achieved! Very inspiring!
Thanks, Mark and Gaz. 🙂 —Pam
Such fun to see all those great changes (without having to do all the work)
I like a garden broken up into different areas, so there’s reason to walk round and explore. And yet, it all hangs together, it works.
I’m glad that’s how it seems to you, Diana, because that was one of my goals: making a garden for strolling and exploring. —Pam
I like the way you have given credit to the previous owners. Each person that takes over a property is compelled to put their own stamp on it, however much love went into the earlier version. It kind of reminds me of the way Native Americans used to honor the animals they used for sustenance.
That being said, I sure do like your version.
Thank you, Ricki. We all build on what comes before, and of course Mother Nature has the biggest say in all of it. —Pam
How do you mow your Berkeley sedge? With a weed eater? Thanks for sharing the evolution of your garden with us. Very inspirational.
I use an electric lawn mower, Carol, set on its highest mowing setting. Zip zip, and it’s done! —Pam
Pam!
I absolutely loved this post! How inspiring! I love how everything has come together in your garden, and I especially enjoy the touches of “whimsy” that you have added – the Austin sign, the stucco walls, the bottle tree, the hanging dish pots, etc.
I can’t wait to see more!
Thanks, Rebecca. 🙂 —Pam
I’m tired too! I felt like I was right there with you reworking each area that you featured. I had to smile when you wrote about the bits that attracted you to the house, which then (mostly) you got rid of, as we felt and did the same here. I still hold out hope of seeing your garden in person someday…
And I hold out hope of seeing you here and showing you around Austin, Loree. I owe you a local tour! —Pam
Pam,
You’ve loved the place so well!
I do love it, Gina, and it was clear that you did too. I hope you don’t mind seeing all the changes to your old home. —Pam
You’ve done such a good job here.
Fun to see the transformation.
Thanks, Linda. —Pam
Love these shots. You have really made it your own. The before pics looked fairly generic and not at all like you, Pam! Btw, love your wedding photos, too. You all were so cute and young! 🙂
Ah, to be cute and young again. Older and wiser just doesn’t have the same ring, does it? 🙂 —Pam
It really can’t be six and a half years, can it? I really need to visit Austin but I think I will wait until the rain stops. Hope that is soon.
Come on down, Layanee. I’d love for you to visit. —Pam
Yippee Ki-Yi-Ay (sp?) I loved this post. It’s so fun to see progression/changes/individualization, etc. All looking great, Pam!
Thanks, Ginny! Before-and-afters really give a sense of one’s progress, or just the natural changes over time. —Pam
Amazing changes! It makes me wish I had enough forethought to photograph what my own garden looked like before I started ripping out the old and adding in the new.
It helps when you start with a house purchase, when you’re documenting everything for family and friends — or your blog, as it happens. When you think about it, though, everything is a “before” picture, even ones you take today, so it’s never too late to start. —Pam