BACKYARD GARDEN & LIVING SPACE

In partnership with Blue Grass Nursery, Sod & Garden Centre

Hello, friends! With springtime here, it has been lovely to resume some of the things I enjoy doing, like taking evening walks with my husband, and spending some time sitting on my porch if the day is nice enough. And with summer right around the corner, I am now excited to live it up in our backyard.

For the first two summers in our little home, we didn’t have any type of outdoor living space. Because I am very much a homebody and prefer being close to my daily comforts, as well as being someone who doesn’t particularly enjoy the heat, this meant I did not spend much time outdoors at all. With this being the case, I had a vision in my mind that one day we could make our outdoor area feel like an extension of our home, and with the help of Blue Grass Garden Centre, I was able to have this come to fruition!

Not long after moving into this home of ours, Troy and I would sit at our table and draw up little plans together of how we could make our new backyard both look nice, and feel like a functional space where we could enjoy the fresh air. Drawing up outdoor space designs has been a little activity we have always done together for some reason. I remember the first time a couple of years into our marriage where I made up a pitcher of sangria, and brought my sketchbook and pencils out to our tiny condo patio, and we began to imagine one day where we would have some land in the country, and would create what we called our “backyard oasis”. These designs were sometimes very elaborate, with an outdoor bar, shower, cabana bed and pool, but it was fun to dream together of being able to make a little outdoor vacation spot right in our backyard.

Though what we created in our current backyard doesn’t involve quite that breadth of items, we have been overjoyed to have a backyard that, with where we are now, feels like a mini oasis to us during the summer, and we are so thankful to Blue Grass for helping us to get there.

A large part of creating our vision, was having trees alongside our fence, and shrubs to fill in the space with green. Where we live, there isn’t a lot of space between properties, and this means with a lack of trees there isn’t much privacy. We knew we wanted trees on either side of our fence to help to create this separation from the other homes, as well as to brighten up the backyard with foliage. We chose to have 3 columner birch trees per side (so 6 total), and we love the green and earthy feel they add to the space, the sound as the breeze rustles the leaves, and the brilliant yellow they turn in the fall.

Another reason this was so great, was that once we chose our trees, within a couple of days Blue Grass had them delivered and planted right where we wanted them, so it made things super easy for us. Within a couple hours their team had all 6 of our beautiful trees in the ground, and we enjoyed them that evening while sitting outside.

We also wanted shrubs to bring in more green in the space amongst the trees. We decided on a few different ones, snowberries, rosebushes, and dwarf lilacs. All of these will grow around 3 feet in height and spread out just a bit, so as to fill things in, but not overcrowd our yard either.

We were also able to have soil and mulch delivered to us, so when planting the shrubs in our garden beds we had everything on hand. Blue Grass also has most other outdoor items - we are planning to get a stone pathway in this year to replace the rock one we have that the grass is currently growing over, haha. Just have to go and pick out the stones!

At Blue Grass Garden Centre they have landscape designers on staff to assist with plans. We showed them our drawings and what we were thinking, and their team compiled a list of things that may work for us, and then took us around and showed us the different items so we could see how everything would look together. For me, being someone very new into anything growing outdoors, this was so helpful to feel like I would end up with plants that would actually work for our climate and how our yard is situated.

I always thought, with my love for white and neutrals, I would only have green and white in the space, but when we were perusing the shrubs and perennials, I liked the pink in some of the roses, so ended up choosing rose bushes that would bring a bit more colour to our yard while in bloom. It ended up looking so lovely! I can’t wait til they all bloom again this year - I am starting to see some little buds on my shrubs, and my snowberries now have green leaves that makes it feel like we are that much closer to summer!

I want to show you some iPhone photos of our yard to give you a better idea of how things are situated, and I hope to give you a more complete update on later in the season. I am planning to get some outdoor curtains around my pergola, and maybe a few more potted plants from Blue Grass to brighten the patio area even more, like these cuties below did last year in my planter boxes.

Here is the front yard with some shrubs. The mulch we got from Blue Grass here made a huge difference in how clean it all looks. Now that the weather is nicer we have enjoyed sitting on our porch in the evening sun that it receives.

Here are the birch trees on one side of our yard right after they were planted. You can see how much of a difference it makes in the yard to just give that bit of separation between the houses. I cant wait til a couple more years down the road once these babies are grown up even more!

And here is a view of the pergola that Troy and his dad built for us. I know these are just a couple of incomplete iPhone photos, which I normally wouldn’t post, but I wanted you to have a better idea of the whole backyard together. Once everything blooms this year I will take more professional photos and give an update so you can see everything looking nice together. But for now, can you imagine why we have come to love this space so much?

The backyard sitting area is so lovely to have now, and what really makes it have that feel of the outdoors is all of our beautiful trees, shrubs, garden beds, and potted plants we got in from Blue Grass. I am so looking forward to seeing all of my green leaves again, so I can sit in this area with my husband, and a glass of rosé in hand, on a sunny Saturday afternoon. This weekend, which is a long weekend here, is looking to hold some gorgeous weather for us, so we are looking to do just that!

If you’re in Calgary and area, and looking to do some updates to your yard, or some planting over this long weekend, I cannot recommend Blue Grass Garden Centre enough. I am so thankful to them for the gorgeous trees and plants we now house in our yard, it has made all the difference. It is so fun to even just go through and peruse all of the lovely blooms and greens they have this time of year. Though I am still relatively new to gardening, there is not much like that feeling of bringing in a couple of fresh shrubs or some flowers to your garden to brighten up the space during this season.

Thanks for stopping by,

In partnership with Blue Grass Nursery, Sod & Garden Centre - all opinions are my own.

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