It’s Spring – yay! The magnolia trees and daffodils are finally blooming, which is definitely the beginning of my favorite season of the year. The last time I shared a peek at our backyard, I showed you a few of the improvements we’ve made over the years, like adding a pergola and removing a scary weird staircase that goes up to the storage space above our garage. Well, now I’m ready to address some of the other parts of our little urban backyard – so I thought I’d share some of my inspiration before we get underway!

Image sources – all from my Pinterest garden board: Horizontal Fence | Deuce Cities Henhouse // Fire pit patio | 100 Layer Cake //  Rose Arbor //  Jasmine wire trellis | Andrew Renn Design via Houzz // Natural Wood Arch // Pink barn door | Castle & Cubby // Graphic Garden | The Guardian

Our backyard is more like a back patio – long and narrow and mostly covered with pavers. On the right side, we have a small planting area with a crepe myrtle, some lilacs, peonies, and a rotation of annuals that I refresh each year. On the left (southern) side, we have a fence that we share with our neighbor that needs to be replaced. The posts are still in good shape, it’s just the pre-fab sections in between that are rotting and falling apart. So we’re hoping to keep the existing posts and DIY a new fence by replace the rotting section with horizontal boards. We have some jasmine, climbing roses, and autumn clematis vines growing on that side, so we’re hoping to space some of the planks out a bit to allow for space for the vines to grow, similar to this fence from Deuce Cities Henhouse. 

Since we don’t have a lot of planting space along the southern fence, I’d also love to build narrow planters running along the bottom of the fence where we could grow herbs and veggies. Andrew likes to have lots of mint for cocktails, but mint is super aggressive and invasive if grown in a garden, so I like to keep that in a separate bed. I’d also love to have more room for strawberries, watermelons, cucumbers, Right now we grow a few of these things in containers, but it feels a bit cluttered. 

We also have a brick garage, so I’d love to do some sort of trellis system along the wall (wire? wood?) for the vines, with an arbor to connect the fence to the garage for the climbing roses to grow over. And maybe a barn door to be able to close the garage when we have company over? Right now it’s just kind of a gaping hole and feels kind of weird. Wouldn’t a pink barn door be SO cute?? The brick is white, and I love the idea of a pop of pink against the white brick.

So that’s pretty much what I’m thinking about these days! Are you planning any outdoor home improvement projects this year? Or have any fence tips to share with us? I’m all ears! You can also follow along on my Pinterest garden board right here!