Ever since the back porch demo last weekend, my mind has been racing with ideas for our backyard. Seriously, I woke up at 5am Tuesday (thank you Rowdy!) and I could not fall back asleep because my mind was racing with ideas on how to best beautify our new outdoor retreat. Due to an annoyingly intrusive work schedule, I have yet to lay hands on the newly exposed soil but (hooray!) Erin and I have an outing to the Natural Gardner scheduled this week. I'll give you a full report provided it's the shangri la of landscaping that I envision. While I'm there, I plan to keep a few images from my outdoor spaces inspiration folder in mind:

Let's keep in mind that it's the feeling of these spaces not the exact look that i'm going for. Much as I would love a crazy stairwell over my lovely exposed concrete wall, I don't think I'm going to get either structure.

I have wanted a pergola covered in vines for as long as I can remember. It had been my plan to build one at this house. In fact, part of the reason our backyard demo took so long was that I was waiting for my husband to have the time to build one. Reality finally set in and I realized that my children's children would probably off to college before Matt ever had the time to construct the pergola of my dreams. I decided the sun sails I bought were almost as good, and the fact that they can go up immediately make them even better.

Oh, but for the record, don't you love this picture?

I can't even find a spot to hang my new chair, much less a crystal chandelier, but I do still love the structured greens in this photo.

I want a pool.

This is my very favorite style of landscaping. Slightly structured chaos, lots of overlap, mixed textures, native grasses, lush without being tropical, zero shrubs and not too many flowers. It's pretty much perfect. Raise your hands if you think a novice planter like myself can recreate this look.

And here are a few more random images I like: