Chillin' in Charleston

Our Condo in Charleston, located in James Island is the perfect place for our daughter and two roommates to live while attending Dental School at MUSC. The only drawback was this postage stamp- sized weed filled yard.





No matter what we did to it, the weeds were relentless and the girls had no time to weed and no mower to keep them under control . I racked my brain to come up with a plan as to what to do with this little piece of green. It needed to be pretty much maintenance free and we were hoping to give them a place to relax and to have a meal al-fresco every once in a while.





First step was to get rid of the weeds and lay some top-soil around the circumference of the yard. I was thrilled with the progress at this point, I thought it already looked 100% better!

The gate opens up to a small pond with a nice fountain that the residents share. It's so tranquil and nice to hear the water and see the turtles sunbathing on the rocks.


It's such a nice little area, but seldomly enjoyed because they feared walking thru the knee high weeds of their yard to get out to the back.


Okay, back to the work..
Here, we layed down two layers of weed block plastic... not easy with the wind lifting up the plastic as we were trying to anchor it down.



After a few trips to Lowes for sand and patio blocks, we felt that the yard was finally looking promising. While hubby built the patio, the girls and I planted flowers along the borders.

After mulching and planting, hubby put down the last piece of the puzzle.

Although grass would have looked so much better in this space, we opted for mulch so that the girls wouldn't have to worry about mowing. The little round stepping stones were added to break up the mulch and also to save bare feet as they made their way to the gate to enjoy the pond outside.


After one and a half days of work, the patio was ready to be enjoyed...




It didn't take long for them to get their suits on and enjoy their little backyard paradise!





Even Duchess appoves...


Please enjoy more transformations at Susan's Blog: Between Naps on the Porch !