How To Building a Beach Right In Your Own Backyard! Do you live too far from the beach to visit, or don’t have one close enough by to go to? Well, why not build your own! With alot of elbow grease, tons of sand and sea shells, and a little imagination, you can bring a beach feel to your own yard.
After moving from the coast of South Eastern Massachusetts, I found myself living in Eastern North Carolina. On the map, it seemed I was close to the beaches, but low and behold, we aren’t. To be close to the ocean we are over 2 hours away. A blow to the beach lover in me. With a little pool in the backyard, one day it came to me. Why not bring some of the beach to me? Now, keep in mind, I am definitely not around tools, or used to doing big projects like this one, but, I must admit, it looks great! Here is what I did.
First, I mowed the lawn to near extinction in the area I planned for my beach. I marked off the area with white spray paint where I would be laying out the plastic liner and began to line the area with heavy duty rolls of plastic. From there, the hard work began. Hauling sand to its final location, starting in the back. I decided to use in the back 4 x 4’s pressure treated of course, for the boarder and started to load up the area with sand. For our area, it took about 3 tons as its about 4 inches deep. I worked my way around the pool area and kept going till I filled in the area planned out.
For the rest of the edging, I used red brick. I then realized that it needed some grass in there to be more realistic so I allowed some areas to have little clumps here and there. I then took some sea shells I had saved from our home beach and from our new area beaches and scattered them all around. Also, it needed some color so I got some big cinder-block style bricks in red and made some raised flower beds. I filled them with geraniums and morning glories so that it would grow wild like back home.
On the opposite side, i decided to plant into the ground with perennial spirea. It will eventually hide the pump for the pool and bring in more butterflies and dragonflies too. I covered the air conditioner with some 4×4’s and lat ice on top and on 3 sides and added some more morning glories to help hide it. Of course, its still a work in progress with a Tiki Bar in the works and a new boardwalk being built, but its a nice little getaway in our own backyard. Feeling the sand between your toes, priceless!:o)
