A nasty, green, unused swimming pool full of algae dominated this back yard, surrounded by safety fencing to keep everyone out. It was large, swamp green and placed smack in the middle of the garden, rendering the heart of the back yard unusable. Then a crew moved in, broke up the pool and filled in the hole – then the transformation began, new live and play spaces brought views, activity, nature and safety to the new back yard.
Lawn and patio 
View from the house 
View from the vegetable garden 
hummingbird + pollinator garden 
Keep the maples!
Not only did the pool crowd out people, it left very little room for roots to grow. The large Japanese maple near the house had trouble getting water and nutrients, since its root zone was mostly paved over. Branches were dying back, the tree’s future uncertain.
Drainage was another issue. The inset deck in the patio is actually a sump to catch water – there’s a fair amount of space under the boards, letting air circulate around the wood.
The vegetable garden grows behind the screen wall: a pumpkin vine, tomatoes, a small orchard… you can just see the tomatoes peeking over the screen fence.
Young children play on the lawn, surrounded by plants chosen to attract hummingbirds and use little water. We kept the bamboo grove, too – another great place for the kids to play.
Removing a swimming pool
A better word for this is really demolition, since most of the pool remains. The goal is to ensure that it can’t hold water underground. The other part of this work is capping all water lines used to keep the pool filled so they don’t leak and create a water-wasting bog – or run up the water bill.
To remove the pool, they didn’t actually remove all of it. The bond beam – the pool wall – got demolished to three feet below the soil level. The rest of the pool was broken up, drilled and otherwise poked full of gaping holes so it could not hold water.
Once this was done, trucks brought in fill dirt, some compacted, the rest left as planting soil for the new lawn. If the pool area settles, it’s over lawn – so fill can be added and the lawn sodded or reseeded.