Project story

The backyard that came back

When the Riveras called, the backyard had been surrendered to the dog and two busy work schedules: bare runs along the fence, beds swallowed by bindweed, a patio you could only guess at. They didn't want a magazine garden — they wanted to eat dinner outside without apologizing to guests.

We started with the bones: cleared the beds down to soil, recut the edges deep enough to hold, and rebuilt the fence line with tough, dog-proof shrubs. The patio came back with a pressure wash and new gravel joints. Then the fun part — forty flats of perennials picked for their light and their clay, mulched in thick enough to keep the bindweed honest.

The Riveras got their dinners outside before the Fourth of July. The dog kept her run along the fence — we planted around her habits instead of fighting them, which is half of what good garden design is. Total transformation time: two weekends. Total lawn lost to the dog since: zero, because we gave her a better path than the grass.