A Quirky Vintage Garden AKA Landscaping on a Budget

When we bought our old house 3 years ago, there was literally 100 years of garbage buried in the backyard. I'm talking about 5 tons of broken glass, cinder blocks, bricks, metal, wire, stucco and assorted other junk. It was completely overgrown with perennial weeds, out of control plum trees and the deck and shed were completely rotted. Since the house also needed extensive renovations, there was basically no money left for garden landscaping, so we put our scavenging skills to work.

BEFORE:

AFTER: A view from my office balcony. Basically everything in this picture, including the furniture (except the heat lamp and the fence) was salvaged.

The old green deck was demolished and replaced with a smaller deck made from new pressure treated wood and a recycled paver patio. Shown here with mismatched scavenged flowers pots of herbs & flowers and a couple broken gnomes.

A huge vintage cement rooster.

An old cement birdbath doesn't quite match the pedestal, but the birds don't care. Recycled Allan blocks outline the roses. Since we couldn't find any tops for the blocks I planted flowering thyme in the holes to keep the weeds out.

A repainted vintage cement garden gnome that my husband rescued is sitting in a little lavender rock garden. We used lots of rocks and gravel in the yard because it was free.


Another beat up garden gnome

And yet another gnome hidden in the David Austin roses.

Raised beds of veggies made from recycled lumber.... excuse the unmown lawn.

This is my very first veggie garden, so I'm super excited to see things grow!!

XOXO Empress Jade