Small city backyard: a 30 × 20 ft yard plan

30 × 20 ft. A paver patio, a strip of lawn, a border bed on three sides and a fence.

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Small city backyard, drawn to scale: 30 × 20 ft. A paver patio, a strip of lawn, a border bed on three sides and a fence.
30 × 20 ft, 600 sq ft. Drawn in the planner and exported as it is.

Thirty feet by twenty is a typical city lot behind the house, and the mistake most of them make is trying to fit a lawn, a patio and beds side by side. This plan puts the patio against the house where the door is, a narrow bed round the fence so the boundary is planted rather than bare boards, and leaves what is left as lawn, which comes out at about the size a push mower earns its keep on.

Four shrubs along the back bed give height without taking floor space, and two ornamental grasses in the side bed screen the neighbour's window. A grill sits at the patio's edge, where the smoke goes over the fence rather than the table.

What is in it

Material How much Ballpark cost
Sod 276 sq ft $110 – $304
Concrete Pavers 139 sq ft $1,666 – $3,887
Gravel 139 sq ft · 1.3 cu yd $51 – $109
Topsoil 276 sq ft · 3.4 cu yd $85 – $204
Mulch 148 sq ft · 1.4 cu yd $41 – $89
Steel Edging 32 linear ft $128 – $288
Ornamental Grass 2 $30 – $90
Shrub 4 $100 – $360
Fence 70 linear ft $1,400 – $4,200
Grill 1 $200 – $2,000
Patio Set 1 $400 – $3,000
String Lights 14 linear ft $84 – $252
Materials in total $4,296 – $14,784

National ranges for materials only, before labour and delivery. The planner quotes the same list for your state, and every quantity here changes as soon as you move something.

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