Unbelievable DIY Backyard BEFORE & AFTER TRANSFORMATION Thousands Saved Using Recycled Material ASMR

About:
In 2021 we began a new garden space in our backyard. This was a complete DIY landscaping project. From planning the space, to doing our hardscape, and landscape planting, George and I did it all together over the course of 2 years. In this video we show you the complete project. There is footage of where we started and how it ended. While this video focuses primarily on the infrastructure, hardscaping & French Drain in the garden, you can find videos of the planting of this space in my “Japanese Maple Garden Playlist”:

We hope this video brings you inspiration for creating new gardens in your landscape, and encourages you to try some DIY landscape projects. Thank you so much for watching. – Steph 🌱(Gardening in Massachusetts zone 6b) #gardening #spring #perennials #plants #new

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Another evening where we are doing some work outside after dinner George has been working on setting the edging stones in this Japanese Maple Garden all of the Cobble has been set on our path you’re really good at spreading mulch thanks I learned from you hi it’s Steph and today’s video is

One that we’ve been working on for the last couple of years well not the video but the garden what kickstarted this was that back a few years ago on Georgia n’s 17th wedding anniversary I knew that he had a little bit of interest in Japanese maples and in an effort to get him

Involved and interested in some gardening and spending some time with me out in the garden I went ahead and gifted him with a small collection ction of Japanese maples and he really liked that gift was really happy with it and it also turned into us working together on this project

Over by our shed creating this new Garden space that we have since called our Japanese Maple Garden now this has been going on for a couple of Seasons so if you’ve been around the channel for a while you have seen the evolution of this space and so this video is a

Compilation of all of the footage that we had taken now some of this footage is pretty raw and um our filming has gotten a lot better in the last 2 years but it just goes to show all of the steps that we’ve taken to get the garden from the

Point where it was originally to where it is now now the backyard has been a work in progress we purchased our home as a new construction with zero landscape so over the you know last several years we’ve been working on building Gardens all around the home and

When we purchased the shed and had it installed in our backyard of course I wanted to make the shed look prettier the space around the shed look prettier and I had just gotten into gardening and of course that meant adding gardens around the shed slowly over time we

Started with some window boxes which George built for me and installed them in front of the windows and then a evolved into putting a patio on the side of the shed where we could put a little bench or a small table to hang out in that back area we eventually added a

Tree as a memorial to a pet that we had um a magnolia that we love and then some beds in front of the shed so as you can see it took several seasons for this area to sort of evolve and the most recent project was once our kids outgrew

Their swing set we thought that that was going to be the perfect space to go ahead and plant this collection of Japanese maples and to start working on a new Garden so I hope that this video um is interesting to you that you enjoy seeing the evolution of a new Garden

Space and like I said provide some encouragement and inspiration for any new Garden space that you’re looking to work on either this season or in the future so here it is planting day for a lot of the Japanese maples so this area is eventually going to be I guess like a Japanese

Garden I think we’re going to add a couple of like natural rock steps right here and then you walk up into this patio area so that’s what we have right now well by the time we got here it looks like most of the cobblestone was taken

So we did look around we were able to F find some good flagstone pieces that might work really nicely as um stepping stones for the path in our garden so here’s what we’ve loaded up so far and we’re just looking for these pieces that are a good size to step on

That aren’t too thick that we can inlay in the path so we’re going to look for a little longer here’s what we ended up with so we need some more but for getting these for free not a bad start so yesterday we ended up going up to Newport Rhode

Island to pick up what we thought were going to be cobblestones um that’s what the ad said but when we got there most of the Cobble was gone and what was left wasn’t usable for us but we did see that they had some um flagstone so we ended

Up thinking well the flagstone probably look really nice in the Japanese Maple Garden as a path originally we just planned to use gravel so then we decided we’d pick those up and when we got home and placed them you know we had only gotten a little bit but those were free

So we brought those home and then today we started looking around some more and we found a woman on offer up who had a bunch of different Stone in her yard that she needed to have taken away so when we got there we picked out what we wanted which was these

Flagstones and um she gave us a price of $35 for all of these so so far yesterday’s haul was free today we’re into it for $35 and we’re probably about 2/3 of the way done with the path we stopped at a nursery on our way home from our from the Tulip farm and

Sure enough they had this little area where they put uh discarded materials from jobs that they were working on we asked the man if he was willing to sell us some of these scrap pieces of Flagstone and because we had purchased some things he said just take them so we

Loaded up a few pieces that we can use it’s been a few weeks since we picked up some stones but we found some more today on offer up these were $2 a stone and we got 15 stones for our pathway this car was really dry I a few times of putting water on

It this guy’s planted so that’s good looks really cute in the spot I think just gave him some water it’s getting really hot in this area now so we’re going to take a break we’re going to have lunch and maybe we’ll put in another session later before the sun

Goes down so that we can leave this in a good spot for the week but George did a great job working on removing some of the weeds that have expiated on this path some more Turf that he lifted um we’re going to keep working on the path it’s going to end up

Coming this way to the stairs as well as this way into the yard um we have to get some more stones and so yeah that’s where we’re at with this for for now we found some more um Cobblestone that we need for our Japanese Maple Garden area and there are these really

Cool vintage Cobble and we found these on offer up a couple days ago and we picked up the load today and we paid A1 a stone or dollar a cobble so really good deal 109 yep we got 109 all together $100 yeah for 100 bucks actually so we ended up getting the man

Had a couple left so he threw them in so we ended up paying 100 for 109 pieces is so good deals to be had if you’re patient and you have time to wait and look around I wasn’t exactly dressed to do yard work so my root apron came in

Handy we still have to actually dig out um a trench where we’re going to set these so we’re just kind of dry fitting them sort of just putting them along the outline so we can see you know where we are in terms of how much more we’ll need

Um to complete the project to give you context how much we’re saving doing it this way collecting these materials slowly the two steps that you see coming off of the patio we bought last fall at a stoneyard and they charge by the pound and we ended up buying those two pieces

For about $100 each so that was $200 for two steps and since then we’ve collected all of the flag stone that you see here on the walkway for about $75 so that’s a huge difference and then the Cobblestone currently sells at lows for 450 a piece

And what we were looking for was this aged irregular vintage Cobble that has some patina to it and we ended up collecting all of these for a dollar a piece so if we had bought this brand new at Lowe’s first it wouldn’t have the character that this one has and secondly

It would have cost us about $450 for 100 Stones versus the $100 that we paid at a do a piece for this one the 109 cobbles that we ended up picking up yesterday ended up outlining this entire bed and the edges of our walkway we do still need more we’re about halfway

There in terms of cobblestone for the outline so we’re going to continue to look for material um and do it the way we’ve been doing it which is you know through Craigslist Facebook Marketplace offer up and um try to spend as little as possible on this project so today Steph found some more

Cobble on Facebook Marketplace and we’re loading them up and a dollar a piece so we’re going to try to get another 100 so far we have about 60 loaded up we’re good for for for yesterday I left off here and when I finish up I try to just be as clean as

Possible and just stop right at the end of a um a brick Cobblestone and I leave my mesh that’s sandwiched in between I leave it out so that I can tie on to the next course and just keep going so I need to get down to the steps

Right over there so I’m almost done setting the border of the Cobble um this morning morning I was kind of dry fitting this area which I’m going to have to dig down and get this recess so it’s essentially level with the grass so when you walk in

You’ll step onto this and then you’ll get into the gravel so I’m going to have to dig this all out and trench it and then cement it in place this is also where I left off yesterday as you can see I always leave the mesh hanging out so I can tie

In so this is just kind of dry fit right now and same thing over here I just found this this Cobble here and that’s going to continue right there and go around so I dry fit everything and then I cement it all in but this is kind of what I have right

Now again I need to finish off going that way and I need to set the steps and all of those cobbles I need to recess under the pad block so this is what I’ve done so far and what I also did was I cut this

You can use a piece of wood you can use anything but this is 30 in and what I make sure is that as I go this is my minimum I have to at least have this clear and I actually go a little bit wider at

Times but I at least I know this path is a minimum of 30 all the way around some areas L out to about 32 but um nothing less than the minimum I’ve used using this as my gauge so it’s a lot easier as you’re going instead of

Pulling out a tape measure you just use a piece of scrap wood pipe whatever you have as a gauge so what I want to do is get it actually below this level because I’m going to add cement um so I’m going to have to keep digging so that these are literally

Recessed and then when I add my cement it’ll build them back up and get it to a point where we’re just like this where it’s level so you won’t trip when you come in so I got to keep digging is for for for for so the patio is back together again and

You can see the Cobble right underneath those um papers that I removed so that that’s all set so now I pulled the step out the top step I need to do some digging now I’m using that as a guide so I need to essentially bring the face of the Cobble

To that point so I got to dig all this out put the Cobble in cement it down and then put the step back and then slide this step back a little bit too and then the step should be done so I just finished up dry fitting

PVC I’m using one and a half inch PVC that I’m going to use for a French drain I’m gonna cap that end I’m gon to drill a bunch of holes at the bottom of the pipe and um I’m going to dig a trench put some crushed stone lay the pipe in there with

Some fabric and hopefully when water kind of flows down this area it’ll hit that trench go into the pipe and then be routed out to the back there because now that I cemented these stones in it’s almost acting like a blockade when water flows down this path so I’m

Going to dig this in below grade with some crushed stone and fabric but this should get rid of any water that ends up in this path and then I’m going to extend that pipe through the grass and out to the back all right I’m done drilling all my holes and this is only

On the top but it’s actually going to face the bottom so I went all along the whole top of this pipe and drilled holes now I’m going to flip it over this is going to face down towards the crushed um Stone and then as water falls into

The trench I’m going to make it’s going to rise go into these holes and hopefully be washed um down to the back another evening where we are doing some work outside after dinner George has been working on setting the edging stones in this Japanese Maple Garden all

Of the Cobble has been set on our path and now he’s working on the steps here that lead from the path up to our patio that’s on the side of our shed mission accomplished for tonight the steps are placed they’re now set and we just have

To do the edge that leads from the path up to the top of the patio there like the border so that will be next and then George is also working on a French drain that we’re going to install underneath the gravel to help with drainage in this area here’s another after dinner

Project started to dig the trench for the French drain about halfway done so little by little he has a progress update on the path right now I am setting in the final stretch of Cobble that lead up to the steps the steps are all set um I had to do some planning here

Cuz I’m getting to the end of a row so I actually had to cut that Cobble with a chisel but here’s How It Ends it kind of flows and and goes right to the patio and I’m in the middle of setting these and all along I’ve been setting some uh wire mesh in

Between the um the cement all the way through this whole the whole row um the idea is with the cold hot cycles in New England the concrete will crack all concrete cracks but hopefully having the mesh in place will keep everything together so we’ll be limited to just some cracking but not

Really much movement where things are popping and and falling out we continue to make progress with our Japanese Maple Garden area George has been working on uh cementing in in the Cobblestone edging over the last week and because we changed the shape of this bed extending it a little bit more

Um we are go we’re going to go ahead and just finish trenching the edging so that we can lay the Cobblestone Edge in the trench and a couple of weeks ago we had placed this cardboard down to kill off the grass on this little bit of this extension and you can see what’s

Happening after we start uh after you put the cardboard down it starts to sort of break down the grass and it’s starting to turn yellow and then it’s going to Brown and it’s a great process for killing off grass without having the ACT extra labor of digging out the sod

So it’s a really effective method I’m probably not going to plant too much into this area this year I’ll let it finish breaking down and by next spring this should all be soil and ready to be planted in we are finally at the point where we

Can start laying our flagstone or the St Stepping Stones within the path so George has been dry fitting to um sort of get a configuration going and also to level the flagstones so that they’ll be mostly even um you know before we put in the gravel this evening George is continuing

To work on the drainage that he’s inserting into the path here in our Japanese Maple Garden and we had a ton of rain over the last weekend and we can see here that had we not um gone ahead and tried to set some drainage for this area we would have a

Really wet Garden so we U it was necessary but look how interesting this is it looks like a little pit of sitting water and George is trenching out the grass we’re putting it on the tarp so that we can reuse it to patch up the hole once he’s

Done the drainage part of this project continues we’re almost done with this piece we put a base well first we put the fabric down and in this corner that George dug out he put a bed of some crushed stone then he laid his pipe that he drilled

Drain holes in and next he just has to put some more Stone on top and then we can cover it and start laying our flag stone on the path so we’re almost there the goal is for all of the water to drain down and a couple of days ago

George had dug this trench here and you can see that the pipe is connected underneath the gravel there and then it’s goes through here and then there’s an exit point so he’s already patched up the grass where the pipe is under the ground here and it’s going to go all the way

Back here to this Woodland bed there’s the exit for and I’m getting to the end of this path project I’m down to four bags I have no idea how I calculated this but I’m going to be real close I’m either going to be I’m going to have an extra bag or I’m going

To need a bag but this is essentially what it looks like before I put down the PE gravel I have to dig out some dirt at times to get each um flagstone to be level with its neighbor so these aren’t exactly level but they’re level enough

That when you put your foot over it you don’t trip and right now I’m overfilling it because I need rain to kind of sink these in and get it good and compacted but once they’re compacted then you start seeing the detail of the stone like right here this is the first

Section I did and now you can kind of see the stone come through so that’s how the whole path should look once it’s done so this still looks gray because it hasn’t been washed out we haven’t had any rain but we should get some rain tonight so if I can wrap this

Up this is how it comes out of the bag a little bit wet but then it turns that chalky color but this is it home stretch and then I need to move on to going around and digging in all the Cobble around this bed well it’s been a couple of weeks now

And we’re finally done with the path so George is cleaning off all of the stones the flag stone that’s inlaid in the path and that’s going to help watering all of this down is going to help settle all the PE gravel and expose more of the face of these flagstones so that’s what

He’s doing and the drainage that we set up or that he had dug into this path because this is a downward sloping grade in our yard and so we knew that if we didn’t do some kind of drainage that we would have an issue with water sitting

Here and so the last time that I had recorded some of the work that we were doing in here uh he had dug a pipe through here that exits in that flower bed there so now that he’s using all of the water in this area we’ve had an

Opportunity to be able to test the drainage and it’s working really well so let’s go ahead and take a look so the pipe comes out right here and there it is so it’s always exciting when you do a project and hope that it’s going to work and it

Does I had no doubt so now that the path is done and all the Cobble is cemented this outside area is not going to be cemented just in case we ever want to shift this bed to make it a little bit bigger we have that option so what I’m doing

Is I’m digging a trench where the Cobble is going to go and I’ll put a little bit of fabric underneath the Cobble and into the bed and um between the fabric and then most of it’s going to be this thin cardboard we have um some more sheets of

That we’re going to lay it on top and then we’re going to put mulch over all this area and all these extra pieces of Flagstone will be removed that’s just extra stuff but I have a long way to go I just started but you get the idea for for for for for for

For you for for you’re really good at spreading mulch thanks I learned from from you you know what I could use I need those gloves with the the claws like the cat claws oh yeah yeah that would be perfect for this well Father’s Day is already passed so at our anniversary but maybe

You’ll get some in your stocking for next year use gloves so it’s an improvement right that is yeah very true we picked up a little bit more mulch so we’ve been working on getting this last bed in this Garden area we got this pineus Mugo winter gold

Planted in this spot here I think it’s going to work out well um because this is a smaller spot and it’s a topiary type Conifer so that we can trim it to keep it tidy and Compact and I thought that this was a good spot to also plant the Dark Side of

The Moon a still be because we have a gold colored Japanese maple here this one’s called orange dream and then we have that Conifer on the other side and then the shiras uh Japanese maple that has a bit of a red coloring um I thought the colors played nicely off of each

Other I also have a Japanese Forest Grass that I’m going to add in this general area and my goat’s beard so I’m working on planting up this corner here so I’m over here planting and this guy starts moving a rock behind me decided that he would like this rock as garden

Art in our new Garden space here right behind me so he’s using some pipes to roll it across the lawn it’s getting the job done though it’s not easy but it’s much easier than trying to drag it true good job George’s goal is to get this rock all the way down this path

And he’s going to place it in that area there where we have that green pot persistence paid off he got his rock where he wanted it perfect it was just raining really hard so I figured it’d be a good opportunity to come down to the Japanese Maple

Garden and see how the drainage is working and the path looks good there’s no pooling of water and let’s go see where the drainage exits yep and we do so right here’s the exit point for the drainage and it’s doing its job I probably should add some some

Stones the water’s flowing out and pushing the mulch to the side so I probably should add some rocks or something but it’s doing its job thanks for watching this video if you liked it please hit the thumbs up button and please consider subscribing so you don’t miss any of my future videos and

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