Learn how to create a defined outdoor dining space in your backyard as Rachael demonstrates by adding ground cover, landscaping around the perimeter and other finishing details.
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In this chapter we are going to talk through defining an outdoor dining space I’m going to walk you through how to choose the location work with what you have and then we’re going to go through some of the choices that I made for this particular dining space I’m really
Excited about this project in particular because I get to reimagine this space for my friend Jennifer so the three things that you need for a great outdoor space are a solid base so you’re not sitting in mud something to define the space in this case we use sort of landscape hedging
And then seating that’s appropriate to your area and your aesthetic I’m going to give you one of my Biggest Secrets I want you guys to feel the freedom and the confidence to create an outdoor room by using plants um I think a lot of people feel like especially in small
Outdoor spaces they want to keep things open open open but I think you can actually make things feel larger when you define it with some softscaping so the number one thing that you want to think about when you want to create an outdoor dining space is Tak in
The yard as a whole and figure out what space feels more natural to come to things like how it relates to your actual home most people don’t like to walk too far from their kitchen door to their outdoor dining space you also might want to think about where your
Outdoor grill is think about what you already have what you want to use your space for whether it be quiet family dinners or big fun backyard parties and that’s how you can start pulling the space together currently this backyard is a little overgrown and so it feels really small but with some meaningful
Updates it’ll feel open and like a meaningful destination remember that whatever you already have in your space will probably look great for your dining area if you have a really small area maybe you just have a beastro table with two chairs that’s perfect if you love to entertain a lot
And maybe you have a bigger area get a long rectangular table with big benches where tons of people can sit around it there’s no hard and fast rule but try to work with what you have rather than feeling like you have to go out and buy all new stuff for your
Space you really need to choose some sort of ground cover just to keep the space looking clean and finished you don’t want it to be forgotten you don’t want it to look like you’ve just dropped your dining table on some patchy grass so maybe when you’re considering what
Type of ground cover to put down take in your entire space think about the style of your house think about the style of your yard so some options that you can put down are grass if you really want that soft feel if you want to put down
Decking or pavers for something that’s a little bit more firm you can do that for this particular project we went with gravel just to build on what we already had the house is painted off black and the gravel itself is an off black and so there’s something about kind of that
Monochrome look that just makes it feel a little bit elev ated and modernizes the idea so starting with the gravel it is the start of the project it is quite literally the groundwork everything will be built on this I just like to make different piles around the area furthest from where I’m
Coming in with it and then I’ll go ahead and start spreading it out I personally like to keep my gravel at only about an inch thick which I know is like not the rule but I think that people look ridiculous when they’re marching through their Backyards When taking into consideration what plants you want to put in always take into consideration first your hardiness Zone that is just the USDA tells you what plants work where the house used to be super traditional Jennifer is now modernizing it and so what we wanted to do is accent the plant
Palette that she already has but also give it a little bit of a lift so it can start matching the house because of that I picked pink mule grass which is an ornamental grass underplanted with disum Cinnamon Girl ornamental grasses are awesome choices because they give you a
Lot of Dimension and movement in areas where a lot of times you just have shrubs or bushes or even trees that are static and then all always always this is my big secret you always want to underplant it with an evergreen shrub because you don’t want to stare at
Cut down grass during the times of year that it goes dormant in this particular case I chose an evergreen plant that requires little to no maintenance I wanted to keep things easy and flowing for this particular space okay so this is where we’re getting into the good stuff this is the
Actual planting this kind of created a natural line for us so we sto the gravel here I’m going to be planting both the pink mu grass and the disan Cinnamon Girl in a straight line reasons for doing that is because I really want to make this feel like a very defined room
So this is going to feel like a living wall but it also has some movement to it because of the nature of ornamental grass it’s going to have some of that like flowy movement if you decide that you want like a curvy line or maybe you
Want to do like a semicircle you can get as fun as you want on this I’m going to be using a tiller in this particular area you can rent one from most hardware stores it breaks up the soil really quickly then I’ll be dumping in some mushroom compost and
Some cow manure and tilling that in and that’s going to give us like a really nice home for these new plants now you guys know how I keep these in shape I went ahead and I stopped tilling here but I’m going to leave a space here and the reason why is
I want to still give access to the rest of the Yard so we’ve got the pink mu grass in the ground as this starts to settle and gets watered it’ll have a little bit more upward movement and then this is our disum Cinnamon Girl this is the Evergreen that’s going in front of it that when the pink newly grass has gone
Dormant this will cover it I think I’m only going to do two of the disum here because this does have a 2 to 4T spread and I don’t want to block off too much of the space for the pathway that we’re going to leave open back here also to
Quickly talk about finding the face of your plant I always like to look around at a plant to see which side of it is the nicest when you’re going to be looking at it a lot and now guys you have to put a top dressing on top of your plants you cannot leave
Them bare do you hear me mulch is the most popular choice I would really suggest watering pretty pretty thoroughly um for that first season just so the roots can start getting comfortable and kind of stretching out and then you want something to hold in that moisture and
That’s what mulch does so that is why we always do it and no one wants to look at your dirt even if it’s good dirt let’s not look at your dirt so now I’m finishing up here this space already feels much more defined we’re creating this little barrier and
Now we get to move on to the super fun stuff never underestimate the power of the little personal touches so it’s not just new gravel and new plants that are really going to draw you into your outdoor space it’s creating a whole mood so we’re going to create a little centerpiece for the
Table this is the area that I just never want people to forget about you can make this as personal as your indoors so if you like to have fresh flowers around your indoors think of that and apply it here I’m going to be doing a simple succulent Arrangement cuz I think it’s
Cute because there is no covering over us we are exposed to the elements be sure that the pots that you choose always have a drainage hole this is commonly known as weed barrier when you have a drainage hole and you put this down it allows the water to run out but
The soil to stay in and there these are just simple echaras if you just go ahead and make a simple cut just like that it will regrow and I’m going to go ahead and reuse as much of this great Cactus mix soil as I can I think this works really well with the
White Tazo kind of being a little bit of AJ position to the dark house oh perfect look at that cutie it’s just really easy easy whatever you love bring it into your space I think the last thing we’re going to do is lighting you can use tiki torches you
Can string lanterns from tree branches uh in this particular environment we’re going to go ahead and string beastro lighting from the house over to the trees I just think that kind of creating a little bit of a canopy over us even if it’s with light is going to again kind
Of reinforce the fact that this is its own room and there you have it so we’ve taken our first step towards really elevating this space I’m super excited I love how the plants are going to grow in and really kind of create this partition that makes
That outdoor dining room its own space I love how the gravel lightened things up I love the touches with the lights and the little succulent centerpiece I just think that this is really going to become the most special place and remember this only took a few steps and we’ve completely transformed in the
Space so don’t feel like you have to do huge things just to elevate your space the tiny things can make a huge impact see you next Time
1 Comment
What kind of mulch is that