My Backyard Plan (Timelapse Painting)

I always need visualization help when planning. The spreadsheets and facts in my head don’t translate to pictures. For this plan, the following facts apply:

1. Over half of our yard is on an incline of about 13%, sending water from the surrounding homes straight towards our back door.

2. There is a yard drain at the bottom of the incline. Where does it go? Who else depends on it? Who knows?

3. Our yard is very, very full of invasive plants right now.

4. I already have several native species growing that I’d prefer not to move:

   1. Coral Honeysuckle

   2. Spicebushes

   3. Elderberry

   4. Wild Ginger

   5. Sensitive Fern

   6. Philadelphia Fleabane

   7. Late Boneset

   8. Jewelweed

5. Most of the backyard gets only 4-ish hours of sunlight a day. Where the Coral Honeysuckle is planted is in a rare, more full-sun spot.

6. I promised the neighbor to my right (in this picture) that I would refrain from building snake hiding spots along the side of the fence we share.

I’ve already discovered issues with my design.

1. Our slope is too steep for the 4 swales I wanted to add.

2. The slope is too steep for any sort of rain garden.

I’m doing my best to educate myself. It’s a process. Where do I go from here? How do I simplify the design to be more practical and still meet my conservation goals?

First baby step: putting down black plastic to kill the turf and invasives on areas I don’t have immediate plans for beds, and using cardboard and mulch where I do have immediate plans.