We recently created a new space in our backyard that we’ve decided to call our backyard Lavender Garden. It all began with the water fountain. My sister was renovating her backyard and no longer had use for this beautiful water fountain. I absolutely love the sound it creates and we knew we could find a place for it in our yard. We had a tiny patch of gravel on our side yard that used to hold our garbage cans. Recently we put in an RV gate to store our pop-up trailer and we were able to move our garbage cans. This opened up a whole new space for us.
Expand Existing Space
We thought this could be a great space for the fountain, however the space was so small. My husband had the idea to bump out the border and expand the space a bit. By expanding the area slightly we were able to create this beautiful new hangout spot in our yard. The first step was to tear out a section of grass to increase the space around the fountain. Here’s a photo where you can see how we expanded the area slightly.
Fountain Assembly
Next up was time to assemble the fountain and get it up and running. My husband was able to connect the fountain to our existing drip line so it would fill up every time our drip line was on. After the fountain was assembled and up and running he tore up the grass and added more rock on top.
Fountain Up and Running
Here’s how things looked after the fountain was up and running and the rock was filled in. My husband found these awesome mini submersible LED lights from Amazon. They come with a remote and you can also change the color of the lights. This definitely elevated the look at night. Now was the tricky part…what would we add to the rest of the space? After thinking this over and over we finally devised a budget-friendly plan. We knew we wanted to add vines like we have in another corner of our yard so we decided to start there. The vines are called Tangerine Crossvine and bloom in the spring and summer.
Rose Garden with Tangerine Crossvines
Here is our rose garden area where we have the Tangerine Crossvines. We’ve had these vines for a couple of years and they’ve completely covered the block wall in this corner of our yard. This is the same vine we planted in our backyard Lavender Garden.
Planting New Tangerine Crossvines
To save money we bought the smallest size of the Tangerine Crossvine. We learned from the last time that these vines grow pretty quickly. Another thing we learned is that the size of the trellis doesn’t really matter since it ends up getting completely covered up. The last time we purchased these beautiful trellises that were quite a bit more expensive and now you would have no idea they are even there. This is the trellis we purchased from Home Depot. My husband cut the bottom legs off and mounted them to the block wall.
Before planting my husband added a drip line to this area so all of our new plants could run off our existing drip line.
Planting French Lavender & Fig Tree
In total, we planted 12 French Lavender plants. Along the border, we planted 7 French Lavender plants and added our Black Mission Fig tree in the corner.
The remaining 5 French Lavender plants were planted under our kitchen window.
Here’s the crew who did all of the work. They added new drip line so all of the plants will automatically get watered and planted everything.
Seating
Originally, we purchased this cute French Bistro Folding Patio Set from Target for this space. However, we ended up using benches we already had from a different space in our yard and liked how that looked better. The French Bistro Set looked better over by the rose garden.
After we had the vines planted and settled on the benches for seating we could get a better feel for the space we had left to fill. We wanted to add a tree to the space and settled on a Black Mission Fig tree. They are supposed to be fast growers so hopefully, it will take off and provide a little shade in this area. While we were picking out our fig tree we looked around at other plants and I fell in love with the French Lavender. We originally bought Lavender to put under the window but ended up with too many plants and that’s when my husband came up with the idea to plant more along the border that leads to the grass. We’re hoping it will turn into a hedge.
Roses & Flower Planter
With the remaining wall, we decided to plant a couple of rose bushes. We also added a flower planter in the corner that we can switch out seasonally to add a little color.
Artificial Turf Around Fountain Base
We would have loved to plant flowers around the base of the fountain to break things up a bit and add color, however, we were concerned about the water splashing out from the fountain onto the flowers. To help keep the water fountain clean we treat the water with bromine. We were concerned that could damage the flowers so my husband came up with the idea to add a piece of artificial turf around the base of the fountain instead. This helped break up the look of all the rock and add a little color to the space.
Finishing Touches
After adding the benches and sitting in the space we realized we would need some end tables so we had a place to put our drinks. We found these black metal tables at Target and they worked perfectly. Last, to cozy up the space and honestly make the metal benches a bit more comfortable we added these outdoor throw pillows from Target. In the future, it might be nice to add some cushions to the benches as well. After we added the end tables I felt like we needed a little something to add on top of the tables. We went with succulents since they require less watering than other plants…and I love them.
Here’s the finished look. I absolutely love how everything turned out in our backyard Lavender Garden and it has become my new favorite spot. It looks especially pretty at night with the string lights and the lights in the fountain. I’m sure this space will evolve over time, but this is a great starting point. I can’t wait for everything to grow and start to fill in the space.
