This Garden Glow-Up Was LONG Overdue… | Budget Backyard Garden Transformation #gardenDIY

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Hello everybody,

Summer is in full swing, and we’ve been hard at work giving our outdoor space a much-needed refresh. In this video, we take on the ultimate backyard transformation—focusing on the back of our house and garden, an area we’ve honestly avoided for way too long. But not anymore!

This DIY garden makeover includes:
✨ Painting the exterior for a fresh new look
🌸 Installing charming window boxes
🪟 Building custom wooden shutters
🌿 Creating a fern rockery

It’s a low-cost, high-impact garden glow up—perfect for anyone looking for affordable outdoor makeover ideas, DIY garden inspiration, or small garden design tips.

If you’ve been feeling stuck or overwhelmed by your own neglected spaces, we hope this video gives you the motivation to just start—make a decision, dive in, and create something beautiful.

💚 Don’t forget to like, comment, and subscribe for more gardening content. We’re so grateful to have you here!

Let us know in the comments what kind of garden or home projects you’d love to see next.

With love,
Anna

Hey there and welcome to our cottage garden. We have such an exciting project to share with you today. There was a space let me let you in on a little secret. There was a space on our property that was so ratty I was ashamed to show it to you. But that all ends today because with a tight budget and a lot of creativity, we set out to reimagine this bleak space into something cozy and charming. And I am obsessed with how it turned out. So, in today’s video, I’m going to show you how we transformed this into this. Now, let’s start at the beginning. So, we’re just rounding the bend on the other side of the house. Had to put Georgie inside. So, let’s see. There are some wild roses down here. Uh, actually, they’re not really They don’t really look that bad. We won’t look at those. And there we have some climbing hydrangeas and stuff like that, but I’ll show you that some other time. I just didn’t know what to do with this space. There was a small mound that backed up to a blank cement wall. We tried putting a blattice, but that ended up just sticking out like a sore thumb as well. So, what do you do with the blank cement wall? Can you guess what we did? That’s right. We painted it black. All right. Black may seem like a bold choice, but I love the way the green, that vibrant green of plants pops against black, and it kind of fades and disappears when it’s surrounded by greenery. Hello, friend. And that’s what we wanted from this wall. We wanted it to disappear. And then with the lattice work, we stain that to sort of match the color of the shake of our house. That is huge. Look at that thing. Be careful, Bert. Yeah. Is she Don’t touch it. And leaning against the black wall, we knew that we had done something right. It just started to look really cohesive and give that look of starting to look harmonious in our backyard. Honestly, I think a big part of why we started this project was because we did our English sunken garden earlier this year, and that just sort of lit the fire underneath us to get the rest of the back looking up to par. Oh, and remember all those rocks we dug up when we were putting together the English sunken garden? We didn’t end up using all the flat slate stones. So, one day while I was working in the cottage garden, Bert just disappeared and made this epic fernery using those stones. It was sort of a surprise and it made me so happy. And when we ran out of stones, he went foraging for some in our woodlands. [Music] I hadn’t seen this footage and watching him try to get those over there just made me so sad and he kept dropping them. Oh my gosh. [Music] Okay, I just wanted to jump in here and share something that’s super helpful for those of you who spend as much time The next thing I wanted to do was just add some color. I wanted some beautiful plants in the back garden, so we added some hanging baskets. I wanted to do as much as I could to create dimension in the back. The back of the house is relatively flat, so we wanted to try to add some of that depth wherever we could. So, we added some of my favorite annuals into these hanging baskets. Some sun patience and some mia, some sweet potato vine. really wanted to have that lush green look and I wanted it to have that abundant look of things spilling over and that way we could kind of eventually by the end of this season, you know, have more green in the back instead of all of the wood and the lattice work, just fill that up with green. So, while it won’t look like that in this transformation, that’s the overall look that we’re going for, that abundance. So, after Burke put up those hanging baskets, it was time to paint. [Music] Okay, my dears. So, while Bert is working on that painting, we’re going to get up to something a little bit more fun. So, I want to create a wreath from things in the garden, maybe some dried plants from last year, some dried flowers, and create a little wreath for the back door. I think that’ll be a really sweet little touch. So, we can kind of put that on as the, you know, the cherry on top of our backyard makeover. So, I’m going to go ahead and stroll through, pick some things. We’ll probably use some eucalyptus and we’ll put together a little wreath. I’m going to go back into the English sunken garden and do it back there. I am drinking this iced tea. I made this the other day, and it’s with everything from the garden, but it is so sweet, you guys. It’s got lemon balm, pineapple, sage, a little bit of chocolate, peppermint, stevia, and it’s just everything was picked from the garden and it’s amazing. It tastes like pineapple and it’s so sweet. Oh my gosh, it’s so amazing. So, I’m going to enjoy this and I’m going to set us up in the backyard. Trying to see if there’s anything up here. I might grab some salvia. That might be really pretty. some of the rock and play in the blues salvia because those dry really beautifully. So I might add some of those. We have some beautiful rubecia on the hill. So I might grab some of that. We’ll see. But this is going to be such a nice day. Bert’s doing a lot of the kind of harder stuff and he just wants me to chill and have a nice day cuz it’s a really beautiful one. So we are going to take him up on that offer. I love it. This is so good. Oh my gosh, it’s so good. And it’s a d-stresser, too. It’s so nice to have a nice, refreshing, delicious drink that’s really good for you. Good for your nervous system. Love it. [Music] Okay, so I have a little basket that has some dried flowers from last year and I’m just going to gather some other things. I’m thinking some of the salvia, maybe some of this gorgeous pensammen. This is so beautiful. And the the kaixes are burgundy, so they stay up and really beautiful. So maybe we’ll do some of that, too. We’ll do it with these ones that are kind of fallen on the ground because those are being lost anyway. I love that. Then just grab some of this salvia. I was going to do that other one, but there’s a bumble on it, so I’m going to leave that. Even though we have thousands of bumblebees, I don’t have the heart to take it from him. That looks like enough. So, we’ll go and put together a little beautiful wreath. I think I might pick some eucalyptus from the backyard as well. [Music] The English sunken garden is just looking so happy. So, I’ve got everything cut, tons of eucalyptus, and we’ll just see what we can make. This isn’t the best time of day or place to be doing this in like the full sun. But, you know, you have to have a balance of what’s good for the plants and what’s good for the gardener because my soul is craving the sunshine. [Music] All right. I think she looks really pretty, so I’m going to put her in the shade. and then we’ll put her up at the very end. All right, so we put her in the shade. I’m excited to put her up at the end. I’m going to clean everything up, relax for a minute, drink my tea, and I’m going to show you where Bert is. Okay, so we are going to be putting together the window boxes for the windows in the back. I have pulled apart a bunch of things. You might remember the coal frame that I made last year. Unfortunately, this year I broke the glass of it, so we weren’t able to use it. But I’m going to reuse that wood. So, I’m going to try to bust through all four window boxes and the shutters for the windows as well. Uh the shutters I’m going to be using, I think, new wood that I bought because I’m not sure if I have enough scrap wood. But if I can use the scrap wood, might go ahead and do that. All right, here we go. One more thing. I’m not an expert. Uh, so this is just going to be a really simple thing. Really simple design. Nothing special about this, but it’s worked in the front. So, let’s try it in the back. [Music] Okay, I got all four window boxes built. Um, you can see there’s two that are smaller for the smaller windows, two for the bigger windows. They’re not completely solid yet, but I’ll kind of add some finishing touches. Maybe put a little wood glue in the joints just to make sure that it doesn’t break apart in the next little bit. Also, I got to drill holes at the bottom and put some plastic on the inside to make sure that they are waterproof and they are draining. And then we got to paint them. So, there’s a lot of steps left in this process. Uh, but right now, I think I’m going to move on while I still have my tools out to making the the shutters. So, I’m just going to put together the the basic shutters for our windows up there and see how they look. Okay. A quick update. I just uh conferred with Anna and we came up with a different design than what I was thinking in my head, which is much simpler and I think that’ll make this process a little easier, which is great. And I think it’ll actually look better, which is awesome. All right, here we go. [Music] Okay, so we have one here. It’s really simple, very easy to put together. So, I think this is actually a cool design, too. And it’s going to look really cool when it’s painted and put next to the window. Yeah, I think this is pretty easy to make. So, I think Anna’s idea is a really good idea. So, we’re just going to go keep making these. I need to make eight in total. So, let’s keep going. And Bert was working in so hard back there. I decided to interrupt with him to bring him a little summer snack. I’ve been craving like an a watermelon and feta cheese salad. So, we did this herby herbs from the garden watermelon salad with vegan feta cheese. It was so so good. [Music] So before Bert went into painting the window boxes, he sanded down the edges to give it that really clean, tidy look. I finished painting the window boxes. Uh just so you know, the color that we’re using on the window boxes and the window frames is called cottage white if you’re interested in getting it uh to match us. It’s a really nice color. We’ve used it uh all around in different projects and it really works on exterior painting projects. And now I’m going to paint the shutters and we are going to be using conifer green. That’s a a color from Bear. I think one of you asked about that. So, uh, we’ve used it on our gates and our front doors, and now we’re going to use it on our shutters, and I think it’s going to look really great. [Music] So, B drilled some drainage holes. Uh then used old potting soil bags to line the window boxes. This is a great way to recycle those. And this just helps to protect the wood from significant water damage. [Music] And now it was time for my favorite part, heading over to Equinox Valley Nursery to pick up some beautiful plants. I think it would get a good amount of sunray. This is my favorite place in this area. And if you haven’t been there, I highly suggest that you stop by. It’s my happy place. Oh, yeah. Yeah. [Music] Okay. Look at these beauties. I’m so excited. So, this is going to be our color palette for our window boxes. Let me set this down. Now, let me talk you through the plants. This one has done so well for us in the ground, and I’m so excited to put them in the window boxes. So, this is the Super Tunia Vista Silver Berry, 12 to 24 in tall, minimum spacing of 18 in, maximum spacing of 32. So, it’s just this beautiful creamy white with this gorgeous rosecoled veining. It’s so beautiful. And that kind of deeper berry color in the center goes so well with this ipameia. Ipamas are a huge category of plants. There are tons of different. Morning glory areas, sweet potatoes and sweet potato vine. This is the ornamental sweet potato. So, this one is the proven accent sweet Caroline Raven and it’s just this gorgeous rich dark color, but the underside of the leaves shows up as more of this rosy color. So, together that just looks so so nice. I’m not sure if it shows up on camera, but it’s a really beautiful pairing. So, what we’re going to do is we’re going to have these. These get very large and so do these. So, we’re just going to have these weeping out of the window boxes. For our hanging baskets, we did a different variety of sweet potato vine and they’re this beautiful lime green color. I think we have a couple different varieties in there, but I wanted this darker color up against the actual cottage white window boxes cuz I think that contrast will be really, really beautiful. And hopefully they’ll just trail down. And so we’ll have the darker on the top and the lighter zesty lime green at the bottom. I think that’ll be stunning. So we’ll do those in the larger window boxes since those plants get a little bit larger. Then in the more narrow window window boxes, we have this gorgeous variety of terrenia. It’s an absolutely beautiful plant and it’s a great one for shade. It has this rich rich blue, a little freckle of yellow right at the lip, and it they’re just such unique looking flowers. So, this is the Catalina Midnight Blue Terrenia, sun to shade, and any other details here. 8 to 16 in tall, minimum spacing 10 in, max 12. So, this should stay on the smaller side, but they’re just so full and beautiful. And I just love love love these really unique flowers. They sort of look like snapdragons or angelonia. Very gorgeous. But that’ll be so fun to play with those in the window boxes. I even am tempted to kind of get a few for the the little rockery that we have, the fernery. Um, but we’ll see. Let me know what you think about that. Now, the absolutely fantastic thing about this project is that I can actually plant them from inside. So, I don’t have to get up on the ladder in order to plant them. That’s a real benefit. All right. So, this is our little workspace here in the kitchen. We’re going to start here all set up. They’ve got soil in them and everything. So, all we have to do is plunk the plants in. [Music] So, here they are. our three beautiful plants. I’ll just water them in. Oh, that’s going to be so fun. [Music] Oh my god, those window boxes look ridiculously cute. I just love it. It’s like everything that I’ve envisioned coming together. It’s so much fun. So, now we’re going to go on a little hunt. Going to hunt for some ferns. All right, let’s go. We’re going to hunt around the property, find some ferns, pot them up, and then we’re pretty close, huh? Yeah. Yeah. What do you think? Those ones? Yeah, those are great. Look, our Norway spruce is still alive. We planted some things back here, but the deer completely ate them. There’s a big interrupted over there. Oh, yeah. Yeah, those are beautiful. [Music] A little clump of them. Yeah. Two. We potted these up before and each year they just get bigger and thicker and thicker. So, it’s really cool. And we’re leaving plenty in this area. Yeah, there’s tons behind. And there are so many over here, too. [Applause] [Music] This is just our woodlands. Boom. So, this one we had planted up earlier in the year because we dug them up to put them in the fernery. Um, and then we didn’t end up needing them. So, that one’s already growing together and looking beautiful. [Music] Bert has been itching to start our fern and fox glove border in our backyard. So, he went ahead and gathered went and foraged some of these beautiful giant interrupted ferns from the property. I think that’s what these ones are. And he brought them into the back and just started to create the back of the border with the larger ferns. And in an upcoming video, I’m sure we will show you the transformation of our fern and fox glove border. [Music] All right, everything is all done. Let me go ahead and give you a tour of our new backyard. I can finally show you what it looks like back here. This is our little rock wall with all kinds of beautiful ferns and pansies in there. And there are lots of planting pockets. So, we can plant that up if we want to throughout the season. Try out different things. And look at how gorgeous those window boxes look. Oh my gosh. So we have the superunia vista uh silver berry up there, the Ipamia, the raven sweet potato vine, the terrenia, and then more of that silver berry. Here we have our sun patients and the IPA, the sweet potato vine here. Oh my gosh, I love it. And this whole area was just such a mess before. Oh my gosh, we replaced our garage door. That was like just embarrassing. So embarrassing. It was just completely falling apart. So, now we have a new garage door. So, so nice. We’ve painted all the trim, replaced some of the trim, and then down here, let me move this fern. This all the shake and all of the trim down here was completely rotted out. It was just I mean, this is our like our basement, but this was completely rotted out there. And so, we replaced that and then stained the shake to match. And I think in the next few years it’ll match a little bit better. But for now, we’ll just have these burns just to kind of soften that line. And we did the same on the other side. But it’s just so nice to have that that fresh paint, that fresh look. It makes me so happy. And we’ve matched the conifer green onto all of the shutters. And I just feel like it’s just such a breath of fresh air. Oh my gosh. And how nice that we can I mean, that’s the beauty of window boxes, right? you can tend to them out of the window. So, that’s just such a fun fun aspect there. Now, when we’re sitting in our English sunken garden over here, when we’re looking back at the house, we can really see all of this beautiful planting and everything just looking so cottagey and cheerful. I think that’s really what it does, right? whenever you have a space that’s whenever you’ve started something if you start somewhere like we started here with the English sunken garden this spring and then you know we the chairs were all facing the house so that made us want to start on this project and then everything just happened from there so I’m just so grateful that we did it. I love how the ferns look in these big pots. I just am so excited to see all this growing in our beautiful climbing hydrangeanger that we’ve never shown you. Finally has some of that lattice work to climb up. It blooms really beautifully very early. And I’m It’s just such a rambler and a scrambler. So it will probably scramble all throughout here cuz it gets up to 60 feet grows up to 60 feet. So that’ll be really fun to watch that kind of grow over the years. It’s just so so fun. Tons of ferns from the property here. This was just such a fun project. Okay, well that’s it. Thank you so much for joining us on this really exciting garden transformation. I hope this maybe inspired you to do a little budget friendly up upgrade update yourself. Please do like this video if you liked. Subscribe if you’re not already. It really does help us out. Don’t forget to check out forio. I’ll leave all that down below and we’ll see you again in the next one. Bye.