The soon-to-be backyard

The backyard, I discovered yesterday, is not completely fenced. There is no fence to the left of the house. I don't think this will be a particularly big problem. It is not, however, clear just where my property line ends and the neighbor's begins. I'd assume that it ends at the fence, but there's a ditch between our yards and it looks like they've been mowing up to the ditch.






The far corner of the backyard is shaded by several large trees which I was unable to identify (not that I tried very hard). Some landscape waste has been dumped back there and become overgrown. I think it would a good place to plant some ferns, hostas and lily of the valley among other shade plants. At present there seems to be quite a bit of poison ivy in there. Fortunately I'm not allergic to the stuff, so I really don't care.















I have checked out a plethora of landscaping and gardening books from the local libraries to get ideas on how to lay out the backyard area. I think some sort of path needs to be made from the deck to the pool. I don't think I'll tackle that any time soon. Flagstones would be nice, but that's gonna be expensive. Perhaps a gravel path. Then again it may not need any sort of path at all. I do think I might build a deck for the pool. In any event, I figure I won't start revamping things too much until next spring. That'll give me time to settle into the house, get used to the warmer climate and get a feel for how the property behaves under various weather conditions.