The theme of the last year is backyarding. This trend is about moving every possible indoor activity out into the backyard. How does your Springfield or Burke backyard measure up?

Office work, e-education, dining, and recreation activities are all moving to the great outdoors, and if you’re lucky enough to have a beautiful yard, you know that it’s the best place to keep things fresh this year.  And if you don’t have a backyard, you’re sure coveting this new trend on outdoor living! 

The act of using the family yard isn’t just limited to safely engaging in everyday activities like working, studying, playing, exercising, and relaxing. Eventually we’ll be back to social gatherings, celebrating milestones, and fêting holidays.  So long after the pandemic is over, our yards will remain an integral part of our lives.

We predict backyarding is here to stay, but that means we need to invest in our yards to make them work for us as we enjoy them year-round. Here are six tips for getting the best out of your backyard.

The Best Backyarding Tips

Design for your lifestyle

Consider the many ways you’ll likely be using your yard. Instead of designing for aesthetics, design your dream lawn and garden around its purpose and your lifestyle. If your kids need a place to play, you’ll want more lawn space. If you’re hosting safe gatherings, small vignette areas might make sense. If it’s more for your rest and relaxation, in lieu of games and recreation, you could consider water features or other cathartic scenery.

Plant, plant, plant

It’s important to plan your backyard not only for your lifestyle, but also for the climate you’re in. It’s also important to plan your landscaping around growth time. 

Featuring trees, bushes, grasses, and flowers make a backyard into a calming oasis, but they also take time to grow and flourish. Start as early as possible with your growing investment so these additions have time to take root and flower.

Create an ecosystem

Don’t just add plants, trees, and shrubs for your own pleasure; add plants that give wildlife and pollinators food and shelter. 

Depending on your climate zone, you’ll be able to find landscaping options that create a larger ecosystem, including supporting bees, birds, butterflies, and other pollinators. This will not only  provide you with more to look at, experience, and enjoy during your backyard time, but it will also benefit the natural world around you.  

Exercise maintenance

Not only should you plant o take your workouts, yoga, and meditation sessions outside into the backyard, but you can make your backyard maintenance into an exercise all its own.

Stretch those muscles and soak up the Vitamin D while mowing the grass, trimming the hedges, or edging the lawn. Because working in the yard not only helps our living landscapes look better and stay healthy, it also gives us a sense of accomplishment and control in trying times. 

Make it a family affair

Get the whole family involved in your back yarding adventures. Whether it’s through creating games and friendly competitions with your loved ones or scheduling ways in which everyone in the family will use the yard, identify all the ways in which you can move your indoor lives out into nature. 

Maybe you’ll plan to take your conference calls while walking through your boxwoods or set up your video meetings on the patio or porch. Your kids can schedule school breaks with yard games. Lunch and dinner can be enjoyed outside when the weather permits. And you can plan to gather safely outdoors for future family celebrations and milestones like birthdays, graduations, and reunions.

Use your backyard for travel inspiration

As much as we love our backyards for the comfort and serenity they provide, they can provide some inspiration for adventure as well. 

Take your backyarding to the next level by planning a yard staycation. Just outside your back door can be the resort or vacation spot you’ve been missing. Whether you pitch a tent build a campfire, set up games, or even hang a sheet between two trees to create a canvas for a projected movie, you can turn your backyard into that adventure — or calming oasis — to which you’ve been waiting to travel.

We are all enjoying our yards and private gardens more than ever. So much that backyarding has become a trending verb! Investing in your yard is a good move, not only to increase the value of your property but also to enhance your well-being and make family time more enjoyable. 

Lawns provide many immediate perks as well as long-term benefits, so it’s safe to say that you will get out of it what you have put into it, and maybe even more!