Mand's Labyrinth

The freedom of space when owning property leaves one hefty chunk of a blank canvas staring right at me every time I look at my own backyard :)


Yes, this is a real and severely consuming landscaping idea I had when chatting with Beth about yards. My tentative plan is thus: "the labyrinth garden", 6 foot high walls of shape-able shrubbery, dead ends, concentric circles, mazes, floral items of interest in nooks, vegetable gardens in dead ends, a bird house somewhere, and a "gem in the center" serenity garden for sitting and enjoying not being able to see anything else going on around us.

I drew this up, to scale, based on dimensions retrieved from the property assessment sheet on the right:

(Click for larger image)

My sketch is yet unfinished (the whole left side), but it's in the works. This hedge maze would consume almost the entire backyard, and I estimate it would take about 10-15 years to fully complete. I'd begin with the serenity garden inside the circle. That way, in case we have to move in less than 10 years, at least something of interest would be designed in the backyard to increase property value, and thus building outward to complete the borders would be a slowly additive process should we remain in this house long enough to see this through completely. In the end, the gem of sitting space at the end of the maze would be the oldest part of the labyrinth.

This plan could also be utilized in any space should we ever move, given that the yard is flat and has at least 4,896 square feet of backyard space. A grand idea for lowering backyard maintenance, as hedges would only need to be trimmed once or twice a year, and all the walking space would have either ground cover or mulch, and would never need trimming.

How great would it be to create this mystical little world, right in our own backyard, to which we could go to escape everyday life? And what a nice photo backdrop it would also be. And think of Easter egg hunting in there ;). Fun times.