Redesigning a boring side garden and shading a patio
I got rid of all the lawn years ago — a big design move — but a garden isn’t static. Years later a space often needs a redesign if it’s become overgrown or certain plants haven’t performed as expected. And sometimes things just don’t work out like you thought they would.
Side garden reimagined
That’s what had happened with the side garden on the east side of the house. Originally it was just St. Augustine grass and a big pampas grass under a handful of live oaks. I dug out the grasses, ran a decomposed-granite path through the space to the gated backyard, and planted…more grasses — specifically inland sea oats, variegated miscanthus grass, and bamboo muhly. Why? Because they are good choices for dry, dappled shade and the deer never touch them. Also, it was a big space, and my budget was tight, and I knew inland sea oats would quickly fill in. (Does it ever!) I added a Texas mountain laurel for height and, later, a lattice fence to enclose the space while admitting light and air.
I’m a big fan of grasses, but it was too much similar texture and height. And as the mountain laurel grew and stretched toward the path, it felt close and jungly in summer and fall, when the grasses were at full height. Worst of all, it was boring. Visitors always strode right through this space to reach the gate, rarely remarking on anything growing here. There was little to encourage anyone to stop and look, and the long, straight path directed the eye relentlessly forward.
At the high end, a rustic cedar bench under the live oaks gave me a spot to sit, largely out of sight of the street, but it didn’t provide adequate seating for two people to sit and talk. Later I planted pale pavonia along the fence for its pretty white and burgundy flowers, but even that didn’t add enough interest. It was just a pass-through space.
Last fall I decided to do something about it. With orange marking paint I drew out a few possible options for curving the decomposed-granite path, eliminating the straight shot to the gate, and leading visitors through the live oaks. But those options seemed forced and fussy. A serviceable path was already in place, and I didn’t want to risk disturbing the live oak roots. What I needed was a way to move the eye, not the feet, into and through the space.
The hardest decision I made was to remove the Texas mountain laurel. However, it didn’t bloom much because of the shady conditions. I cut it down myself, sawing off the trunk at ground level. I drilled several holes in the trunk and poured a little Roundup in them to kill the root system so it wouldn’t try to grow back. I cut the sea oats to the ground and dug them out by hand, trying to get all the roots in the process.
The mountain laurel hadn’t worked out as a focal point because it was too large for the space. Instead I considered a tall piece of garden art but settled on an elevated planter. I dug in a column of cantera stone I already had (a gift from a gardening friend years ago) and purchased a corten planter bowl from Veradek to set on top. Planted up with an ‘Opal’ variegated American agave, it draws the eye into the space, pulling it away from the long, straight path.
While I was at it, I powerwashed the brick siding, moved a flagstone path along the back of the bed, and re-stained the lattice fence.
I found a steel lattice trellis at Hill Country Water Gardens & Nursery and installed it on rebar stakes between the path and a large Mediterranean fan palm. Then I set the cedar bench against it, facing a new swinging chair I bought online. Voila — a conversation area was created! The trellis and bench separate this space from the rest of the garden, and now it feels like you’re entering a garden room when you walk down the path. (Everyone asks where I got the hanging strands of stainless steel balls: Wind & Weather, but I don’t think they’re available anymore.)
I also hung cafe-style string lights on the fence and over the gate, connected to a timer I bought at Home Depot during Christmas light season. I set the lights to come on at dusk and go off 4 or 6 hours later, depending on the season. I love the soft glow that illuminates the path and seating area at night.
A new gate was on my wish list, but to hold down costs I opted to keep the one we have. It’s just a standard wooden gate that I customized with a peekaboo window, a curved top I cut with a handsaw, and gray-green paint. I did enlarge the peekaboo window to give more of a glimpse of the back garden. Another cantera stone column by the gate displays a potted foxtail fern.
I’d started to plant the new garden bed when the February deep freeze happened. The Mediterranean fan palm that shielded the space from the street died back to the trunks, but it’s slowly starting to come back. It will eventually provide privacy again. I also lost the ‘Opal’ agave, the potted foxtail fern, and all my pale pavonias, but I’ve replanted. Otherwise the plants survived, and I finished planting this month.
After some debate, I removed the steel edging along the left side of the path. I didn’t want a tripping hazard for people stepping into the seating area, and it was a distracting visual line anyway. For now I’ve left the right-side edging, though I may pull it later.
Inspired by Kurt Wilkinson’s Yalamurra, in which topiaried green shrubs add geometric form in a meadow garden, I created a stylized mini-meadow of my own. Three ‘Baby Gem’ boxwoods planted in a loose triangle will eventually be pruned into low mounds (I hope!). Mexican feathergrass and ‘UpTick’ coreopsis are filling in around them, although the deer have munched the coreopsis flowers several times. I’ve been spraying them with deer repellant, but that may not be sustainable.
In the morning light, the lattice fence shadows the path in a matching grid pattern. The cedar bench (newly powerwashed too) makes an inviting spot to stop a while and watch little lizards and birds.
Or sit in the swing chair, and you can see activity out on the street.
It’s been fun reimagining this space and replanting. I look forward to seeing whether it slows future visitors down to enjoy it with me.
Patio roof
Another recently redesigned area is a small patio off our living room and bedroom — what I call the upper patio. Our house came with several small backyard seating areas, all of them unsheltered. That wasn’t a big deal until covid, when we could only meet up with family and friends outside. Suddenly, having a roofed space with protection from sun and rain (not to mention nonstop litter from live oaks) mattered.
Inspired by slanted steel patio roofs designed by Lorie and Michael Kinler of Redenta’s Landscape Design in Fort Worth, we hired Austin Custom Metals to build one for us. I absolutely love it. The shelter of a roof makes the space feel bigger, and while it’s not completely weatherproof during heavy rains, it keeps out most of the water and tree debris. And the shade is great, especially with a Big Ass Fan spinning to keep the patio cool.
String lights run around the steel framing…
…for nighttime enjoyment of the space. This photo was taken just before the Big Freeze, which damaged the whale’s tongue agave (at left) so badly that I ended up removing it. I replaced it with an ‘Alphonse Karr’ bamboo, which will eventually provide a little extra late-afternoon shade.
A new flagstone path set in river rock leads from the patio to the lower garden. The faux millstone has always been there, but it used to be set in a mulched path.
With these two newly redesigned spaces, plus the dramatic cutting back necessitated by the February freeze, it’s feeling like a fairly new garden this spring. But the garden is always about change, isn’t it?
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Digging Deeper
Need design help with your yard? Hire me as your personal garden coach! Maybe you need replacement plant ideas after the big freeze. Or maybe your landscaping has grown tired, and you want fresh curb appeal. Or perhaps you’re ready to get rid of some lawn and create a pollinator garden, bird habitat, or hangout space for you and your friends. I’m here to help! Contact me to let me know what’s going on, and let’s figure it out together. My range is Austin and suburbs within a 25-min. drive of NW Austin, but I’m flexible and can travel farther with a surcharge, so let me know where you are. Weekday morning appts. only.
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Thank you for all the wonderful ideas that I have now for my yard. The freeze took so much up here in Fort Worth.
I need to replace my pergola. Does the roof you put on your patio must effect the light you get inside your house? Is it a problem? I’m afraid a solid roof on my pergola will make my interior so dark.
Thanks for your blog!
The roof does significantly reduce the light that reaches the interior rooms next to the patio, Emma. There’s just no way around that except maybe raising the patio roof very high. But that allows more rain into the space, so it’s a tradeoff.
Thanks for reading Digging, and I’m glad it’s giving you new planting ideas!
Love the new areas! I always wonder, though, how you keep mosquitoes at bay in the areas with more foliage. I know the fan helps on the patio, but we seem to have sturdy mosquitoes that can find my husband (I use him as my personal mosquito trap) even in strong breezes.
Mosquitoes are unfortunately a fact of life in subtropical climates like ours. I am strongly against spraying the garden with mosquito-killing fogs or other poisons because it kills other insects that are beneficial and/or that feed wildlife like birds, frogs, and lizards, thereby poisoning them as well. So I rely on fans, Deet (Off!, etc.), and making sure there’s no standing water in my yard.
Thanks, and I agree 100% about not killing mosquitoes. The “safe” sprays some tout still kill the good guys.
Excellent! I love the dish topped stone column, and the agave just takes it up to perfection. Also that roofed space is just lovely, what a wonderful place to hang out.
It really has been, Loree. Thanks!
What a change, and what an improvement! This isn’t a walk-though-without-looking space any more. Congratulations!
I hope so! Thanks, Pat.
Wow, this is so lovely! I really appreciate the insight into your thought process while creating these beautiful spots!
Thanks, Kate. Design is definitely a process, and this space took a good deal of thought. I’m looking forward to seeing how it works as it all fills in.
Great job Pam! I know how much work that must have been but it is so worth it! Good thing you started before the freeze and had time to adjust plantings afterward. You are so right about gardens evolving and that’s half the fun! Enjoy your new spaces and thanks for always taking us along on your journey!
Thanks, Melody! When the garden gets full, all that’s left is reworking or moving — ha! Happily I enjoy the process of reworking a space.
The redesign of both the side yard and the patio look terrific. When I viewed your top photo, I didn’t know if it was a ‘before’ or ‘after’ but I immediately thought, “Oh, why would she change that? It looks so GOOD!” Turns out it was an ‘after’ photo. The whole area just pops from the focal point planter to the wonderful fence that provides the geometric pattern on the pathway. I absolutely love it. Knowing what you removed also makes me think. I have inland sea oats in a wild area of my garden and although I like it, it requires some maintenance to keep it from taking over. (If it gets too rambunctious, I will pull it out.)
The shaded patio is a great addition. All of these changes are wonderful. I’m still in love with your peek-a-boo gate. I think this make-over is magazine-worthy.
Thanks so much, Laura! I like the way the lattice adds cool shadows to the path too.
I love the steel patio roof!
Thanks, Kris. Shade is precious!
So impressive. I love how the fence shadow mirrors the trellis and the galvinized roof is to die for.
Thank you, Tracy. 🙂
Wow, Iove how these spaces turned out Pam. Even without freeze-zilla your garden is so different now than it was just a few years ago during Fling. Was it really a few years ago ??? Sometimes 2020 just seems like a big black hole !
There HAVE been a lot of changes since the spring of 2018. I lost a big live oak in the backyard, took out the stock-tank pond, redid the Circle Garden, and made these other changes. It’s a new garden in some ways, for sure!
Love both projects, Pam! Anything going on the new trellis or just keeping it clean?
And I’m curious what you might use as a counterpoint to the grasses, if you give up on the coreopsis. Salvia and lantana both safe for me with deer. And I’ve never heard you mention using crinum.
Just before the freeze I’d planted a white potato vine on the trellis, but it died in the freeze. I haven’t decided whether to replace it. Without the palm it’s already so open that it doesn’t really matter. But once the palm fills back in I may decide to try the vine again and see if the deer will let it live.
As for a coreopsis substitute, I don’t have anything else in mind yet. I want it to stay low. A low, spreading lantana might work. I’ve never tried crinum. Do the deer leave them alone?
Deer have never been a problem for my many crinums. It’s been said no crinum ever died, and I think that accounts for deer too.
Wow, all the changes look great! Can’t wait to see how the new side yard plantings fill in. Both spaces look wonderful for sitting and relaxing, and I hope you’ll have lots of time to enjoy them after all of that work. (“While I was at it, I powerwashed the brick siding, moved a flagstone path along the back of the bed, and re-stained the lattice fence”, she says, like it’s no big deal!) Excellent work!
Haha, thanks! I forgot to mention I repainted the gate too. 😉
So good to see you plowing forward with some amazing improvements. The patio roof is going to pay off huge when the heat really kicks in. Very inspiring, Pam!
Thanks, Denise. We’re already loving our shade, as we’ve had some days in the 90s already. But I find I enjoy the sheltered feeling in any weather. It’s eclipsed all our other seating areas. Wish I’d done it years ago!
I love before and afters, and these were exceptional! You must be a fast worker, you accomplished a lot of tasks on the side garden. I love your stone columns with potted plants, and the metal roof is a true masterpiece, adds so much wow factor! You will get lots of use of that patio now I am sure!
Thank you, Heidi! Actually I’m not very fast. 🙂 I started the side yard changes in November and didn’t finish until May. And the patio roof was a months-long process as well. But little by little, stuff gets done.
I love all of the changes you’ve made! It shows how thoroughly you thought through the whole process. It may take a year or two for it to be all it can be, but it’s certainly off to a wonderful start!
Thanks, Ellie!
It looks great Pam. You will probably use this area even more than before.
Yes, we already do. 🙂
Thanks for sharing your transformation – I so enjoyed your garden during the fling and enjoy seeing the changes you’ve made –
Thanks, Starla!
The side really works now, and I remembered just walking through it before; now the areas to pause and the focal points of the containers compliment instead of fill in the tree trunks. The upper patio and the new cover was a surprise, but it also is a good way to shade but minimize litter.
Thanks, David. As for the patio roof, ahh, so nice to have not only shade and rain protection but relief from the constant live oak litter.