Backyard Arbor

Turn your backyard into an entertaining haven

by Chris Caldwell

A large backyard in an old Toronto home is a great bonus to have. Loved it though we did when we bought the place two years ago, it was lacking in scale, elevation and imagination. We found that we didn’t want to spend any time there.

Creating outdoor ‘rooms’ transforms a blah yard into outdoor space that you – and all your guests – will want to spend time in. Besides, being able to enjoy a fabulous outdoor living area means you will want to stay home and entertain or enjoy in solitude the peace and quiet that well-defined outdoor rooms create for you. That saves some serious cash.

This was not a costly project. We needed four 6×6 posts set 3ft deep in concrete, 2x6s for the end railings, 2x4s for the arbor cross-pieces, post caps (not installed yet), screening and some poured concrete pavers. I’m still creating the pond and waterfall – and we’re using an old shower base as the foot-deep base where the pump will be, and some large rocks and flagstones found around the property for the waterfall, so we only needed to buy a sheet of pond liner and a pump. We’ll have the hard materials part of the project completed for about $500.

An arbor needs plantings around it to soften the edges, and the right size plantings both highlight the arbor and contain it for more of an outdoor room feeling. The perennial garden was poorly planned and, well, flat and boring. We went to Reeves garden centre on Danforth Avenue (near Donlands) to seek out some evergreen trees and shrubs with scale and texture that would provide year-long greenery.

Reeves’ staff are really knowledgeable, and the site is really well stocked with healthy large trees and shrubs, great for the serious gardener. With Reeves help, we chose maturing trees such as a 6ft  cypress, two 4ft dwarf Alberta spruces, a whipcord red cedar and two golden junipers for low to the ground texture around the pond, and two 3ft holly bush pairs for the glossy green and the colourful berries visible year-round from the kitchen window. As you can see in the pictures, the impact is dramatic.

There are still some finishing touches to complete, but the yard is now usable. Much more than usable, in fact. We realized that by the end of May we had already spent as much time enjoying our backyard as we had spent during the entire summer of 2009.  Now we can’t wait for the water feature to be done. Nirvana!