DIY Life

This is Part I of a five part series detailing the rehabilitation of a "plain Jane" back yard into a really nice landscape. My son and his wife live in a cool little town adjacent to West Palm Beach, Florida. Their home is somewhat akin to a "shotgun" style, with a similarly shaped back yard.

Over the course of a week, I helped my son with the latter stages of the plan that he and his wife had begun to implement shortly after they moved into their home. The back yard is now a very welcoming part of their home, complete with paver patios and walkways, a water feature, new sod and plantings, and provisions for the future expansion of irrigation and landscape lighting.

For all things neat about your yard, don't miss Diane Rixon's Avant Yard, here on DIY Life. Additionally, if you want to consider something other than pavers, take a minute and look at my feature on some of the options.

Check out the gallery for the process involved in the initial stages of the construction and, after the jump, we'll get into the fun stuff.

If your lifestyle is anything like my family's, you might have an overdose of candle holders and other decorative stuff filling up the closets and other storage spaces in your house. We started to take it outside in the form of sprinklers for the garden and they look a lot better than the black sprinkler stakes you can buy.

We used candle holders, lamp bases, and little garden statues to make this work; but anything you can drill a hold into and run an irrigation hose through should work. Note that wood and metals will probably age and rust, but that's part of the charm.

To build these, drill a hole into the decor just smaller than the irrigation hose so it fits snuggly into place. Run the small hose into the main irrigation feeder line. In my case I used a soaker hose. Add your sprinkler head and start watering.

These are great for making mini bird baths and butterfly watering stations. Just add some aquarium gravel or pea gravel to the basin for butterflies so they don't drown.

Drip irrigation: Drip irrigation is a great way to address a number of issues related to plant watering techniques, water use reduction programs, and environmental impact. With drip, as opposed to overhead irrigation, it is possible to get the desired moisture placed ideally close to the plant's roots without spraying it all over adjacent plantings, sidewalks and driveways, or your neighbor's car.

In its simplest form, a drip system consists of a source (typically a high-pressure tap after a water meter), a pressure reduction valve to get the supplied line pressure reduced to that suited to the system, a back-flow device to prevent contaminated water from getting into the domestic water supply, a manual valve (or electronic controller and electric valves) to operate the system, main line pipes, lateral, or branch, lines to actually distribute the water, and emitters in, or attached to, the branch lines.

You have a few odds and ends in your vegetable garden. Some herbs, perhaps. Maybe more if, like me, you reside in the gardening paradise that is The South. Problem: you can't be bothered dragging the darn hose out just to water a half dozen (or less) plants.

Easy solution: use empty gallon water or milk jugs, or old soda bottles, to create a no-cost, super-low-maintenance watering system.Just take a pin and prick a small hole in the bottom of the jug. Then fill with water, replace the cap, and bury the bottle in the soil next to the plant that needs water.

One of my very favorite things to do is the planting and transplanting of trees. I am personally responsible for establishing the happy and healthy lives of hundreds of trees encompassing species from Aspen to Walnut.

The single most important consideration after successfully planting a tree is an adequate supply of water to assist the tree in becoming established in its new site. It can be difficult to deliver a sufficient amount of water to young trees in an effective fashion, especially if you have planted or transplanted more than a couple of them.

What tends to happen is the water is delivered as one complete dose at the base of the tree and often times two thirds of that water just runs off and is of no real benefit to the tree. Even if you make a water basin at the base of the tree, when you fill that basin the water tends to seep sideways quicker than soaking down into the root zone.