Backyard Repurposing

One of the features that sold us on our home was the small amount of grass in the backyard. Our prior home had a large backyard and Hubby has never been a fan of yard work. So, the appeal of "low maintenance perennial gardens" sounded great to us. 

Now that we've been in the house nearly 3 years, we have come to realize two things:

1. The words garden & low maintenance should never be in the same sentence. 
2. With three kiddos we need more grass. We backup to a large open green space, which we though would be a perfect place for the kids to run & play but they still are too young to be without adult supervision.

We've already eliminated two flower beds, one was actually dead smack in the middle of the yard folks! Now we have plans to size this bed down by nearly half providing 4.5 more feet of play space. 

Originally, the thought was to place our veggie garden here, but I decided upon an alternate location. 

Now you can see how there will be a nice stretch of grass for ball pitching, tag playing & slip'n sliding.

As for the garden, the spot below receives adequate sun, an already defined boarder & is close to a water spigot. Our yard guy actually showed up yesterday and I had him clear this bed of the three blah plants that occupied this space. Now it is a clean slate. Guess that means I need to get down to business. Hopefully the warm weather is hear to stay & we can get our veggies in the ground Mother's Day weekend when we traditional do all our planting.