Halloween gets much more fun when the spooky feeling starts before anyone even reaches the front door. A few crooked tombstones, strange shadows, and something moving near the walkway can turn an ordinary suburban yard into a little Halloween scene. I’ve found that the most convincing Halloween yards aren’t necessarily the ones packed with expensive…
There is something oddly satisfying about sitting in your backyard with a notebook, a pencil, and a flower you probably walked past a hundred times without really looking at it. After years of gardening, I’ve found that I remember a season much better when I write down the little things. The first bee on the…
There is something about a pumpkin sitting on a front porch in October that instantly makes a house feel ready for Halloween. But after a few years of carving the usual triangle eyes and toothy grin, I started wanting something a little different. I wanted pumpkins that looked interesting during the day, but still had…
Halloween decorating gets surprisingly stressful when the front door is involved. You want the wreath, lights, creepy little details, maybe a few pumpkins around the entrance—but you also don’t want to discover a strip of peeled paint or sticky residue when everything comes down in November. I’ve decorated plenty of porches and front doors over…
I’ve decorated for Halloween outside for almost two decades now, and I can tell you exactly how I learned most of these lessons — by walking outside the morning after a storm to find my “graveyard” scene scattered three yards down the block. A tombstone in the neighbor’s rose bed. A skeleton face-down in a…
I’ve built more porch planters than I can honestly count at this point — some for my own house, a bunch for neighbors who saw mine and wanted the same thing, and a few for a small holiday market booth I did two winters back. So when I say I’ve made basically every mistake there…
I’ve been stacking firewood the wrong way for longer than I want to admit. Tarps that blew off in the middle of the night. Pallets that rotted into the mud after one wet spring. A “temporary” wood pile against the garage that turned into a permanent termite buffet. If any of that sounds familiar, you’re…
After ruining more plants than I’d like to admit — and tripping over open bags of potting mix more times than I can count — I finally figured out what actually works for a real, functional potting station. This isn’t a Pinterest fantasy bench that looks pretty for five minutes before it’s buried under empty…
After ruining more plants than I’d like to admit over the years, I eventually branched out into the “other” side of yard work — the stuff nobody puts on a mood board. Trash can storage is one of those projects. It’s not glamorous, but it’s the kind of build that quietly makes your whole backyard…
A pondless waterfall sounds fancy, but it can be surprisingly DIY. Here’s my down-to-earth review of the POPOSOAP 1600GPH Pondless Waterfall Kit with Light—self-circulating design, hidden underground filter box, all-in-one accessories, and color LED lights that make the waterfall pop at night. The “my yard feels flat” moment You know that feeling when your outdoor…