Planning the Backyard!

We have finally gotten around to doing some real work on the backyard!
We hired a landscaper to come up with a plan for us.

Our wish list included:

- Pavillion for a dining area

- Pathways and colonial style gardens

- An area in the center of the gardens for a sundial 

Below is the first draft that he came up with.  The house is on the left, the well house is on the right.  The structure in the middle would be the new pavilion.

It was a good start, and got us thinking more about how we'll use the space.  

We decided that we needed the following changes:

- Reduce the lower level patio area

- Move the pavilion a bit further away from the house (so that when you looked out the kitchen window you weren't looking right into it)

- We didn't like the stone wall coming off the back of the house

- We wanted a pathway to enter the middle of the back yard from the driveway

- Need a fence for the dog

- We wanted less of the lawn area, more gardens.  We have so much grassy area with the field, we don't need that in this section of the yard.

Some of the challenges of the space are:
- We want to keep the privacy fence (shown running along the top of the plans) but it is currently running on an angle, following the property line.  We'd like to square it off a bit to make this area of the backyard appear more symmetrical.
- The yard slopes down to the driveway.  We have to fill in some of it, but will still have to have steps in the walkway going up to the pavilion. It would be too steep to just have walkways.


Here's where we ended up for the hardscape...

And here's the latest plan that includes all of the plantings...