Front yard - current plan doodle

Now that Fall is here and I've been doing some yard clean up, I thought it'd be a good idea to record what I currently have so that:
1) I can plan out (and dream about) my dream garden during the cold winter months....
2) So that I can remember and find all the plants I had without accidentally digging plants up....
3) Monitor how my plants are doing year after year....

So I drew up this plan over lunch break today as a mini-record.  I think my drawing is a bit out of scale (bigger than it actually is compared to the proportions of the plants - maybe it's my subconscious hoping the yard was bigger).  After some cleaning up the last few weekends, I managed to make some space between all the over-grown shrubs and now can start to see the plants individually.  I'm still not too happy about the positioning of the Viburnum and the Wiegla - I think they're too big to be up front like that.  Maybe I'll prune them a bit before winter to see if they'll grow back next Spring in a somewhat manageable size.

Now, the next thing to think about is to plant bulbs or not to plant bulbs.... I'll save that for the next blog entry :) 

Backyard Landscape Doodle

So here is my first amateur attempt to sketch out the "existing condition" of our backyard (I want to learn to draw like a real landscape designer...)

As you can see, the shape and proportion of the yard is very long and narrow.  The previous owner did a nice job of putting in the deck and landscaping in the middle (some spots needs to be fixed up and thinned out).  I'll have to try to draw this again in scale next time, but at least it's a start.  From these sketches, I plan on playing with the design and shape of the garden all winter long (when it's too cold to be out there!) and hopefully by Spring time we'll  have a newly designed plan! :)

Happy planning!