13 Bare Backyards Turned Into Gardens the Whole Street Stops For: a Thyme Path and a Meadow on Sand

“Our garden path transformation! Before & after”

We moved into a new house with a bare garden filled with sand and construction waste. The first spring last year we had so many weeds and wild flowers, we almost didn’t know where to start. We’ve been slowly transforming our garden, but the first main project was the garden path.

We’ve planted a lot of creeping thyme and already a year later it looks like this! Every day there are about 5 million bees flying about and collecting nectar from the flowers. The garden isn’t finished yet but we’re so proud of our project. First picture was June 20 last year.

It’s a bit of a parcour, especially with all the bees now, sometimes I just walk around the path now haha.

“My Dad’s Garden Obsession Has Officially Taken Over (and My Spine May Never Forgive Him)”

As the unofficial wheelbarrow operator, I felt it was time to show him off.

The Rockery: 84 metres of hand-picked stones pulled straight from the river. We wheelbarrowed them (across soggy grass, uphill both ways, I swear) and placed each one by hand. No clue how many rocks... but I reckon I’ve counted each one in groans.

Bridge Revamp: He completely rebuilt the little bridge to our neighbor’s with a new wooden pergola, gravel path, and climbing roses.

General Landscaping Madness: He doesn’t stop. Ever.

This is an appreciation post from a son who’s deeply impressed, slightly injured, and occasionally drafted into labour. Dad’s recently semi-retired, full of energy, and constantly looking for the next big garden project — much to the fear of my mum, who was really hoping for a bit of peace.

“Wife tasked me to build an Herb Spiral with a $0 budget”

I’d never heard of one before a few weeks ago, but the Internet and r/gardening are powerful tools! To stay within my budget, I used old pavers that had a less than optimal shape, old weed barrier and the rest of a bucket of grout from a project finished years ago. After scoring each with a chisel, I dropped them on a large pointed granite stone to split them into the shape I needed.

If I were to do it again, I would spend more time grading the base for better drainage and would challenge myself to make it at least twice the height.

“UPDATE: Stinging nettle everywhere! (I hired GOATS!)”

I posted a bit ago about the stinging nettle problem in my yard. I asked around on [social media] and found a guy that was willing to rent me some goats and a bonus alpaca. I’m his first customer!

They’ve been here a full 4 days and are working hard! So much progress and they’ll be here 3 more days still.

Only downside is that they obliterated a small, fruitful, lime tree I had back there. Lessons were learned.

We did learn that nettle is good for nursing goats, or something like that, I’m forgetting now.

Bonus pic of the alpaca, Todd!

It was bothering my dogs and kids from going outside.

We figured the nettle’s going to come back anyway because these animals are not pulling up the roots. That’s a problem for the future me haha.

“Pollinator garden UPDATE”

I moved to Virginia last fall from Massachusetts. I decided to turn my awful front yard into a pollinator garden. I used a “wildflower seed mix” of annuals and perennials. Didn’t see many perennials but whatever.

Because I seeded everything so thickly the annuals grew super duper high and you literally could not see the house from the road. It’s been the talk of the neighborhood and it’s been great. I’ve met so many neighbors and people drive by and take pictures and stop to chat.

So... everything was great until we had some big storms in July that were super windy. They knocked down big clumps of plants, and it was like garden dominoes. I was absolutely devastated, ...but nature had a lesson for me.

When I started clearing out all the broken plants, I discovered that all of the perennials were there, they were just teeny tiny little seedlings struggling for sunlight at the base of all the annuals. So I started in on Garden 2.0. The perennials started growing like crazy.

The garden is completely different from what it was, and is now 90% perennials and has bounced back in a very unexpected but beautiful way. I have seen so many butterflies, hummingbirds, a pair of mockingbirds have raised 2 broods in the holly shrub by the front door, and a nest of baby bunnies that still pop by to visit on the regular.

“We have so many different flowers popping up, he hand picked each plant & designed the landscape so thoughtfully! Now the creek has all these beautiful colors around it.”

A little creek winds across a fenced backyard over a bed of rust-red stones, with water running between them. Young trees, white flowers and clouds of lavender-blue blooms crowd its banks, and at one bend flat stone slabs make a tiny waterfall. The words on the screen sum it up: “POV: your bf built you a creek & the plants are starting to grow in.”

“A Backyard transformation you won’t believe, from sand to grassland”

This was the backyard when I first moved to northern Ontario zone 3 B. I’m originally from Jamaica, I never gardened before. I want to share the 4-year progress saying anything possible.

I had a vision in mind when I started, I wanted to make a big garden and an animal safehaven, I’ve had chipmunks, birds that made their nest in the garden and other animals. My advice, little by little goes a long way, I spent $30 each week just buying soil just to build up the land, 4 years later.

And I do have a chipmunk Bestfriend, she’s lived here for 4 years and all these other chipmunks they are her babies!

Having my friends and family to share this space with, people even come by to see the little animals, it was a labour of love

“A stray rabbit helping my bf dig a hole in the garden this past spring”

A man in a cap and work gloves is digging a deep hole in a garden bed and tossing the dirt into a big blue tub. Right beside his shovel, a white rabbit with black spots is digging too, kicking soil back with its front paws and not bothered in the least by the blade a few inches away. The two of them just keep working side by side.

“Our landlord said I could do whatever I want with the yard.”

I resent the idea that you should never spend money on a garden that isn’t yours. It’s an investment into my happiness, and when I move away some day, I’ll be leaving with a lot of knowledge to use in my own garden.

And yes, I have it in writing (multiple times) that I can do whatever I want with the garden. Apartment managers are good friends of mine & have said multiple times that they love seeing how much nicer it looks now.

The amount of life that has shown up in this garden is WILD. More bug species than I can count, several bird species regularly foraging in the yard, and even a few baby slow worms & a couple VERY large adult slow worms.

“Before (top) and after. Y’all convinced me to get rid of half my lawn to make it more biodiverse. Now we have a bee habitat and a registered monarch butterfly sanctuary where lawn was.”

I had to hold my nose when I made an offer on this house — it was in terrible shape and soulless, it didn’t even have a single working HVAC unit inside & broken windows (and almost zero landscaping).

HOPEFULLY it helps a little to make this ol’ 2007 McMansion not look so much like a tacky McMansion.

I knew people would think I was a bit crazy for planting it directly in the front, but that site has the perfect exposure and drainage, so I planted asparagus and strawberries as companion plants and whoa they are thriving!

Most all the plants I bought on clearance in the FALL.

“We terraced our sloping block (Queensland, Australia)”

Took a 14 degree slope and turned it into 3 terraces with sandstone gabion walls. Added some stairs down one side and planted a lot of native plants. It’s so much more useable now.

While it was more open before, it was not useable unless you like playing sports on a slope. My niblings love to jump off the walls and run all over the place. The other up side is that now when it rains the water actually soaks in rather than sheeting straight off to the neighbours.

My neighbour did come out and look. He thought our house might have collapsed down the hill.

“Since I lost my job and had our first kid, we’ve been doing a ton of gardening. This letter we got from a neighbor we don’t know made our day.”

The letter:

Aloha Neighbor! Hope you don’t think this is too strange, but you have the Most Beautiful Garden I have been admiring it for months. You truly have a green thumb! The giant Monstera is gorgeous! Very impressive. I love all the succulents near the road and the amazing variety of your plants. Thanks for brightening my run everyday!

My wife and I looked at each other and said “wow we need to start doing this!”

I just took my daughter (3 months) on our nightly garden “world tour” before bed.

“My native gardening journey.”

I garden in Zone4b/5a suburbs of Minneapolis. I started my gardening journey 11 years ago after watching a documentary about Honeybee Colony Collapse Disorder. I felt a call to action. Needless to say, I dove in head first and consider myself an obsessed gardener. And over the years, I have converted about 2/3 of the lawn into gardens.

My native plant garden lines the entire span of the sidewalk in my front yard. The neighbors enjoy it. The Assisted Living residents from down the street walk down to admire the flowers. I do keep the garden fairly tidy to not attract too much negative attention from naysayers.

It looks nothing like it did when I bought the house.

Lessons Learned:

Start small, don’t go crazy like I did. It should not be a chore.

Don’t stress out when things go wrong. There is grace in gardening.

The best garden on any street almost always started as its ugliest yard. Someone just had to go first with a shovel, and the neighbors did the rest by slowing down.