When we purchased our house four years ago, one of its major selling points was its (comparatively) large backyard. The house sits at the bottom of a cul-de-sac, and the backyard wraps around three sides of the house, almost creating its own zones for what we wanted to do. There's a southern exposure for gardening, a large yard for the kids to roam about, and even an area near the gate that would be perfect for an outdoor kitchen someday.
Potential. Tons of potential.
The actuality of the yard, though, is a bit of another matter. When we purchased the house, it had been a foreclosure on the market for many months, and it is obvious that the previous owners had let some things slide. Like yard maintenance. Of any sort.
There was a tree down across much of the yard, and it had been there long enough for a trailing bush to use it as a scaffold. The lawn could have more accurately been called a weed lot, and if you consider bermudagrass to be a weed, it still could. Some prior idiot had planted mint in the yard. MINT. The sprinklers were busted, the mow strip long since lost, and there were stumps of trees that refused to die and decently decompose. The drain doesn't. The fence was only held up by hope and bushes.
In short, it was a mess. A mess with potential.
The tree has been turned into a brush pile, and the lawn underneath has been recovered. By bermudagrass, but in some ways, that's the best part of our lawn. The mint... well, I sometimes feel as though I'm winning against the mint, and sometimes feel as though it's winning against me. Give me three years and a rototiller and I might be able to get ahead of it. The sprinklers have been fixed, the mow strip uncovered, and the stumps still refuse to die. Stupid privet. The drain... well, I'm going to have to dig up the yard at some point, maybe I can sink a dry well. Our contractor neighbor replaced the fence for just the cost of materials, and let me say it's the prettiest fence in the neighborhood.
As for the garden... well, it's on the southern exposure. With the mint. And bermudagrass. But I got tomatoes last year, and that's the important thing, right?