I need help with my backyard design. I want the beautiful Pinterest yard and no dirt drug into the house, my large dog wants a nice soft place to run and lay and watch the ducks at the pond, and our very large Western Cedar just wants to be happy. I had a designer come out to help with some suggestions, and I feel like it did solve the dog issue, and hopefully helped the tree a bit (removed rocks from the new chip area to lighten the load on the tree). That being said, I am not happy with how it looks. It looks like our yard is now split in disjointed thirds. On one side is grass with some new plantings, in the middle is cedar chips and the other side is river rock with a flagstone path to the shed . I was hoping to get some suggestions with how to blend the three areas a bit better so it looks like it has flow vs. hard stops of each surface. The black barrier in the picture is keeping fido off the newly seeded grass for the next 3 weeks.
I would really appreciate any suggestions, however the dog couldn't care less :).
Zone: 8b
North facing yard: The new planting area next to the lawn and under the cedar tree does get afternoon sun
Clay soil being on the acidic side
The planting area is next to the grass so I am assuming it will get decent water when we water the lawn. The tree area would only get watered by hand.
The dog does lay around the base of the tree so I would need something that is pretty forgiving of a large goofy dog.
