(EXMARK BACKYARD LIFE) — Most homeowners don’t have a problem with their backyard, they have a problem crafting a yard that fits their lifestyle. They walk outside, look at the space, and feel the weight of every possible decision and project hit them all at once. Grading issues, overgrown beds, the patio they say they’ll eventually get to rebuilding, the list goes on. Before they’ve even done a single thing, they’re already overwhelmed.
Here’s the thing: that feeling usually isn’t about their yard. It’s about where they’re trying to start. In this Done-In-A-Weekend Projects episode, Doug Scott of Redeem Your Ground helps you do just that. Because a backyard that works for your family doesn’t always begin with plants, patios, or Pinterest boards. It begins with your life.
Front Yard vs. Backyard: Two Different Design Goals
Before diving into design, it helps to understand that your front and back yards have fundamentally different jobs.
Your front yard is largely about the street: drawing the eye to the front door, creating a welcoming arrival for guests. The design decisions there are more formal, more about first impressions.
Your backyard? That’s where things get personal. It’s the space that can most reflect who you are and how your family spends their time outdoors. The back is where you have room to be creative, expressive, and intentional in a way the front yard rarely allows. Everything that follows is about getting that right.
Start With Life, Not Landscape
The first question Doug asks every new client has nothing to do with plants. It doesn’t have anything to do with grade, drainage, or existing hardscape either. It’s this: how do you actually want to live outside?
It tends to surprise people, but the answer shapes everything.
Some families want to gather: a yard built around long evenings with people they love, a fire pit that’s always ready, a dining area close enough to the kitchen that nobody thinks twice about eating outside. Others want to grow things, whether that’s food for the table or a cut garden that produces beautiful bouquets. Some want room to play. And some just want a beautiful place to look at.
And some want all of it, which is fine. What matters is knowing which of those things matters most, and in what order. That’s where every good backyard design plan begins.
A few questions Doug says are worth considering before going any further:
- What do you love about your current yard? These are the things that stay no matter what.
- What do you dislike? That view of the neighbor’s driveway. That corner that never drains. Name it.
- Do you have pets? Dogs especially change the calculus. Fencing, traffic patterns, dedicated relief areas, and surface durability all factor into the plan.
- How long do you plan to stay? There’s no sense building an expensive master plan if you’re moving in three years.
- Is there a yard from your past you’ve always wanted to recreate? A grandparent’s garden, a childhood home, a place that just felt right? That kind of memory can quietly shape a design.
One more thing: give yourself permission to forget. What you saw on social media, or what your neighbor just had installed, might be perfect for them. Be inspired, sure. But your backyard plan should reflect your life, not someone else’s.
Know What You’re Working With
Once you’re clear on how you want to live outside, then look at what you’re dealing with.
Walk the yard and pay attention to the realities. Where does the sun hit, and for how long? Where does shade fall during the hours you’re most likely to be outside? Are there grading or drainage issues that need to be addressed before anything else happens? What’s the soil like?
Get those right and everything else falls into place.
A few more realities worth knowing before anything gets built:
- Property lines, setbacks, and easements. If you’re adding any structure or hardscape, a property survey is worth every cent.
- Material costs. A pea gravel patio costs a fraction of what bluestone runs. The bones of the design can stay the same; the materials determine what you can do now versus later.
Think of Your Backyard as a Floor Plan
Here’s the shift that tends to make everything click for Doug’s clients. Instead of looking at your backyard as a lawn with some stuff in it, think of it the way you think about the inside of your home: different rooms, each with a purpose, arranged around how you move through your life.
You have a dining room, a living room, a playroom. You just need to come up with an outdoor floor plan that matches how you live.
Your dining space belongs close to the back door. Every extra step between the kitchen and where you eat is a reason not to eat outside. Convenience almost always wins, don’t overcomplicate it.
Your living spaces (a fire pit, seating area, wherever people naturally end up) are more flexible in placement, but you need to think about how people get there. In a home, a hallway tells you where to go. Outside, that’s the job of your paths. Without a clear one, there’s no clear invitation.
A kids’ play area, especially for younger children, needs to be visible from wherever the adults are going to be—be it the kitchen window or the back porch. And make sure there’s a comfortable spot nearby for you to sit. You’re more likely to go outside, and a lot more likely to stay.
Don’t forget access and storage as you lay out each zone. If the wood for the fire pit is on the other side of the yard, you’ll use the fire pit less. If the garden tools are in a garage that’s a trek away, gardening becomes a chore. Every room needs what it needs to function—storage, access, and whatever utilities make the space work.
The View From Inside Counts
Here’s something most homeowners never think to do as part of their backyard design: go back inside. And look out.
Walk every window and door you use regularly, especially where you spend your mornings or evenings. Then, ask yourself what you want to see. What’s your first thought when you look out the back door? What would make that view better every single day?
That view is one of the most important design decisions you’ll make. And it also helps you prioritize. If you see something every day, it needs to move up on the list. The thing that bothers you every morning should get fixed before the corner of the yard you see much less often.
Think about what deserves to be featured and what deserves to disappear. A beautiful tree, a well-designed garden, an interesting focal point? Feature it. A utility box, a neighbor’s garage, an HVAC unit? That’s exactly what plants, screening, and smart placement are for.
What Makes an Outdoor Space Livable?
Most landscape designers start and end the conversation with plants. Doug’s approach is different, because plants aren’t what make a space livable.
What makes it livable is making sure each zone has what it needs to function. That means planning for storage near each area, so you’re not running back to the garage every time you need something. And, it means mapping out water, electricity, and lighting before anything gets built, not after.
It also means thinking about how the outdoor space connects to the indoor one. When you walk out the back door, the yard should feel like an extension of your home. Not a separate world you have to mentally gear up for.
Work the functional details in from the beginning, and you avoid spending money twice. Skip them, and you’ll almost certainly be tearing something up later to get it right.
Right Plant, Right Place
Once your rooms are defined, your paths are mapped, and your utilities are planned, then you start thinking about plants.
Think first about growing conditions: sun exposure, soil health, and how much room a plant needs at maturity, not just the day you bring it home. Then think in layers.
Background plants give the yard structure and give you something to look at year-round; these are typically taller, evergreen, and carry the space when nothing else is blooming. Mid-layer plants sit in front of those, a mix of perennials and other material that add seasonal interest without the background going bare when they’re not in bloom. Finally, the foreground is where you place your smallest plants, groundcovers, and spots of color.
One more rule worth following: don’t impulse buy plants. A great specimen in the wrong place, or five of them scattered randomly, creates a distracting yard instead of a designed one. Choose a few standout plants for visual interest and let everything else play a supporting role.
One Room at a Time
Doug says you don’t have to solve your entire backyard in a single weekend. And honestly, you probably shouldn’t try.
A master concept is useful because it gives the whole design somewhere to go and keeps the phases from working against each other. But if budget or time doesn’t allow you to do it all at once, pick one room that would make the biggest difference in how you use the yard right now. Get that right, then move to the next one.
Every great backyard starts the same way: with a clear picture of how you want to live in it. Spend some time thinking and dreaming about what that could look like. Come up with a plan. Then build it, one room at a time, until your outdoor spaces feel as much like home as everything inside.
