You'll regret the landscape fabric. Don't do it, man!

It sounds like you have a lot of ideas for using your property for interesting and fun things like growing fruits and flowers. That can be a lot more rewarding than lawn, but is not likely to be less work or have you spending less time in the yard--most likely, you will spend as much or more, though less of it will be mowing.

That's quite okay as long as you have your goals figured out. Also, you sound like you need a bit more of an overall plan in that regard, combined with what other things you hope to do "in" your yard or view from your windows. For example, you are creating lots of beds and borders but appear to have a fairly small patio for outdoor living activities.

If you develop more of a master plan, and recognize that it takes a lot of work to get a "border" established, and that if you want it to be lower maintenance than lawn, you basically need to make specific plant and planting choices re: the exact species of groundcover(s) and shrubs, along with how and when you install them, then you might want to plan to develop one area more completely (closer to the point of controlled maintenance) than to get too many areas under partial development at once--that is, all dug up and then you are waiting for inspiration on what do do with it. That's also true of maintaining the edging--your choices and the amount of edge you create now will affect how you spend your time on weekends and holidays.

I also am anti-landscape fabric, but more particularly it is not a good idea for plantings that will require ongoing nourishment, such as fruits and flowers. In these areas, it is better to choose applications of compost or types of mulch that reasonably control weeds, but also replenish the soil.

Landscape fabric is less of a liability in areas in which you are going to only plant some kind of tough groundcover and never really "mess with" the soil again, but by the same token you can get as good a result without it, so I find these situations rare, for me.

Okay, so I'm easily convinced on not going with the landscape fabric. I was looking into it and realized that the place I bought it from had it on clearance for about $2 for a 3' by 50' roll, instead of $20. I had been saving cardboard to use as a barrier that would eventually compost instead of the fabric, so I'll just go that route instead of the landscape fabric. Could I use landscape fabric temporarily in the vegetable garden? Classes that I have attended emphasized plastics, but I was just wondering what I could do with the fabric now.

As far as border plant ideas... I had just started from seed some zinnia, assylum, sweet william, and Lupine. All but the Lupine have sprouted. I also have some day lillies that I can divide and transplant to put into the back instead of the front. There's another low growing shrub with white and green variegated leaves that I can take cuttings from on a side yard. I started a forsythia bush from a branch that had started to take root, but those can get rather large. I also have some roses that I am going to experiment with taking cuttings, that's probably a longer term project. There's also some Salvia next to the house that I would rather move out to the border. Last year I planted some dahlia in the border, but I apparently didn't give it enough winter protection, or it's just not ready to wake up yet. I'm also interested in getting some Iris started.

Another alternative would be to transplant the runners from our patch of everbearing strawberries. Can't ever get enough berries!

I had entertained the idea of creating a "room" at the southwest corner. Instead of putting the grapes on a trellis, I would train it to a small arbor with raspberries in a raised bed on either side. Then we could put the vegetable garden in that corner a little more hidden from view, or make that more of a cutting flower garden.

Another idea would be to put a bench in a shaded area on that side of the yard, maybe inside the arbor, so there is still a view of the children's play area, but my wife could oversee while reading and not be in the middle of the action.

I think I need to print a copy of the picture of the lot so I can commit more ideas to paper, and locations of these flowers that I mention, to further develop this master plan.

One thing I realized last year was how effective using cardboard was to prevent some things from coming up, and how dead the soil I was using was since it was coming from deeper in the ground. Building up the fertility of the soil will definitely need to be part of the plan.

As far as priorities, I would like to move the raspberries sooner than later, and establish the border around the peach and cherry trees. The trampoline going in-ground got an early start, but the support structure to prevent erosion is bigger than I think I realize right now. I've seen people use brick, steel sheeting, and lumber, but I've yet to determine my own approach.

The apparent prevailing of the How To posts doesn't really bother me at all. Nobody should ever feel their posts aren't good enough or they are being picked on. I'm certainly not going to miss the repeated belittling comments a certain recently departed party directed at me during their last days here (or the site deleting my objections and keeping the original insulting comments on a certain thread). If somebody is trying to clue another in on certain fundamental points or insights and the one at the receiving end feels they are being lectured or made fun of, that should always be incidental rather than intentional.

Not that a little jocularity or levity ever hurts.

For a long time it has been So Much Potential, So Little Realization. If How To posts are now going to become numerous here, thereby blowing fresh life into it, so be it.

cyclewest, that was a very nice blog. And very informative of your landscape progress. The photos were just the right size for a blog but a tad small for detail.

I took a little time to clean up the property plan so I could use it to get the proper relationship of where the photos were taken. I'll post it for you and anyone else to use.

{{gwi:19334}}

You ask if you are making a mess, and I would answer maybe you are. Putting plants on a landscape is somewhat like a person getting dressed. But in the case of dressing you might want to take a bath first. Or you could get dressed first and then jump in the water, but it works best the other way around. Stop planting long enough to make certain that you have not overlooked something that should have come first.

As I looked at the expanse of your backyard I was reminded of a thread here last fall that dealt with a drainage problem with no good and easy solution. At the bottom you will find a link to it. You can learn a lot from the mistakes of others. Building beds at the end of a down slope as you are, might get you the same result.

For every project built on, or a part of, terra firma:

Rule #1
The first thing to consider in design, and the first thing to do in construction, is to take positive control of the water.

I would suggest you print the graphic above and map what happens to all the water, where it collects, where it flows, where it exits your property. Don't forget roof water from gutters or sump water from the basement. How and where does the water go from the steps into the basement.

Then you will want to make provisions for the controlled flow of all the water from the beginning of the project through final construction such that it leaves your property in the same location as pre-construction.

If you want to use the above graphic for planning purposes, I can overlay it with grids for you, but I will need the property line distances to do so.

Here is a link that might be useful: need drainage help

I'm not a fan of landscape fabric either, it's a Pandoras box. For weed control in the vegetable garden I use paper grocery sacks. I rip the sacks and place them directly around my plants. I put them in the aisles and I cover everyting with grass clippings and mulch. The paper bags are porous enough to let moisture through, keep weeds from coming up and protect the vegetables from ground rot. In the fall or spring I just roto till it all in and start over agin. The bags break down into mulch and it makes for an easy on the back garden and keeps it visualing appealing.