There it sat, stubborn and gray, right in the middle of my front yard, a weathered old stump that had outlived the oak tree it once supported by about three years. Every time I pulled into the driveway, it stared…

For a long time, the stretch of yard between our front door and the street was the part of the property I mentally skipped over. The mailbox was a plain post-and-box combination from a hardware store, planted in a patch…

The corner of the backyard where the slope met the fence had been a problem for three years. Water pooled there after every rain, the soil stayed soggy, and nothing would grow properly, and the visual effect was of a…

My patio had the specific sadness of a space that had been started and abandoned. The furniture had been purchased with genuine intention one April and by August had faded slightly and moved slightly and accumulated the outdoor furniture problem…

The backyard pool conversation in our house had been running for four years. Not the kind of conversation that moves toward a decision, the kind that circles the same territory every summer when the heat arrived, and the children started…

The backyard came with the house, technically. In practice, it was more of a corridor with ambitions, a narrow strip of concrete and compacted soil running behind the property, flanked by identical fences on both sides and overlooked by the…

For most of us, the garden starts with good intentions. We look out at the patch of outdoor space attached to our home, and we feel, briefly, inspired. Then the weekend passes, the tools stay in the shed, the grass…

The kitchen windowsill had become a graveyard. Three terracotta pots of basil, mint, and something that had once been parsley sat shrivelled and defeated on the ledge, proof of my fourth consecutive failed attempt at growing herbs indoors. The basil…

The backyard had been on the list for three years. Not the growing list, not the composting list, not any of the active, productive lists, the other list, the one titled something like “eventually” or “when things settle down.” It…