How to DIY your dream yard

Want to design your landscaping yourself? Start here!

We recently finished a transformation of our floating deck and gravel patio. This is a project we had been wanting to tackle since the day we moved in, but we had no idea where to start or how to work with the limitations of our space. As much as I love working with interiors, I felt completely lost on designing an outdoor space. But we successfully created a beautiful outdoor entertaining space, and now I am going to take you along the journey to design and plan the rest of our one acre yard. Let's get started!

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Look for inspiration

When someone asks me for help with a room in their home, the first thing I tell them is to create a Pinterest board. Designing your yard is no different!

Make a board dedicated to yards and gardens that inspire you. Pictures that include ideas you like, gardens you're drawn to,  or maybe have a similar shape as your yard, or a similar house shape, patio shape, etc. 

How lucky are we these days to have this great resource for inspiration?! If you need a place to start, I have two boards that I fill with inspiring ideas for you: Exterior home inspiration and outdoor space ideas. 

Keeping a board like this will help you to narrow down what you like and find things you want to incorporate in your outdoor space.

Pinterest isn't the only source of inspiration of course. Utilize Instagram, Google image search, home and garden websites, magazines, etc. Even snap a photo of a yard in your neighborhood that you love!

List your must haves

Make a list of things you absolutely must squeeze into the space you have available. As an example, here's part of our list and some photos that inspired me.

An outdoor entertaining space. (Completed!) Do you see how this space inspired me with the gravel right up to the tree trunks?

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Plenty of yard space for the kids to run and play.

A play area for the kids. Wouldn't something like this be cool?!

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A fenced in vegetable garden.

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A cut flower garden. I love how this garden feels semi-formal but could be full of flowers for cutting.

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Create a plan

Ahhh, this is the hard part! I had no idea how to take the inspiration and put it into a usable plan that would actually flow together well!

But then one of my favorite Instagram accounts shared a tour of her yard. It was simply stunning. At the end she mentioned a garden design class she had taken that helped her create the plan for her yard. I decided to look into Garden Design Bootcamp.

I signed up right away! I'm so glad I did! It helped me create the vision for our entire outdoor space so much more clearly.

Since we had just had a baby, I decided to only focus on our small patio area for the purpose of the class, with plans to go through the materials again when we were ready to plan the rest of the yard. 

The class helped me put my vision for the patio onto paper with accurate measurements and come up with an actual plan that worked with the existing deck. 

If you're ready to design your yard, landscaping, or garden yourself, I highly recommend checking out Garden Design Bootcamp.

Choose your plants

This is my next step! I now have a vision of how I want our outdoor spaces to look and the style of plants I want to incorporate. But how do I put it all together?

I just signed up for the second class, Planting Design Bootcamp, to help me select the right plants and figure out where to put them so that they actually look good together!

Indoors, my favorite thing is to create "vignettes." For example, arranging decorative items on top of a dresser- paying attention to balance, size, colors, texture, etc. It has to flow together well. Creating a plan for your yard or garden is like designing a room, but selecting and placing the plants is like creating those vignettes, those smaller, thoughtfully curated moments. The little details.

That's the part I need help with! I am so excited to be more intentional about the plants I select and to put together gardens that look thoughtfully put together.

This fall I will be working through Garden Design Bootcamp again to plan the rest of our yard, and I will also be taking Planting Design Bootcamp so that we can work on our gardens this coming spring.

If you're working on your outdoors spaces too, I hope you'll sign up to join me in this helpful class!

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