July 22, 2025
Contemporary Courtyard Makeover
When their beloved bungalow was declared beyond repair, Sarah Nemec and Roice Nelson started over with house, garden, and philosophy in 2020. Then they scrapped the lawnmower for stylish outdoor living and colorful wildlife habitat.
Sarah broke up the stark backyard with inviting nooks linked by colorful blossoms, fragrance, and evergreen enclosure. Her designs evolved through trial and error, just as she did as a gardener. Especially, she wanted plants that didn’t struggle with our freezes and blistering summers.
“The beds were more perimeter, very narrow. And over the last few years they’ve expanded and expanded and expanded for more planting area. So now we’ve got places for different activities,” she told us when we joined them for a delightful May morning.
One is the fire pit cove, inspired by an enchanting trip to Marfa and an evening out around a garden’s fire pit.
They wanted to create that same mood of cozy relaxation, being lost in plants and fire pit reflections. So, ten years ago on their 9th anniversary, Roice commissioned a nine-sided fire pit.
In our video, he explains the mathematical ratios associated with this nonagon. (Whew!)
To create a room with another view, Sarah found a kit pergola.
Roice and friends jumped in for a new-fashioned “barn raising.”
Sarah, an interior designer, crafted the romantic table from serendipitous finds. She landed the table bases at a restaurant supply overstock sale and found a stone remnant to top them off with elegance.
As garden beds often do, Sarah’s seem to magically get bigger every weekend! Evergreen structure anchors native and adapted plants for seasonal flowering and fragrance. Citrus plants grow in pots that go inside over winter. Sarah’s big on variegated plants, too, especially since they pop by night. The “prickly pear bed” also acts as a beautiful “room divider” between the fire pit and dining table.
Sarah’s got a great eye for shaping the huge prickly pear that came with the house. To manage its form, she just snaps off pads to pass along to friends.
She includes lots of native and adapted plants for hummingbirds, bees, butterflies and the rest of the wildlife crew. Salvia guaranitica ‘Plum Crazy’ pops in vibrant tropical-meets-Texas color, a hummingbird’s delight!
Wildlife needs a drink of water, too, even in winter. Sarah crafted this charming bubbler from a plant pot with a pond liner underneath.
A few years ago, they built a wooden privacy fence to replace the old chain link. Then Sarah stained it black to spotlight the plants.
Here, evergreen cherry laurel and windmill palm embrace summertime canna, another hummingbird plant that goes dormant in winter. Variegated Japanese sedge pops cascading variegated leaves, one that I love as much as Sarah does.
When they rebuilt, a screened in porch was tops on the list to embrace the outdoors minus the mosquitoes. It’s also a catio for their many sweet rescues.
On the left, a lacy paloverde lightly shades perennials and container herbs. Bees head to its yellow flowers. Behind, esperanza and trellised coral honeysuckle attract hummingbirds. They also love desert willow ‘Sweet Bubba’ that anchors the right side.
“I wanted to talk about Sarah’s mom too, because it’s been cool,” Roice said. “So Sarah and I have been together for over 20 years, and watching Sarah in the house where she grew up and when we first started dating, watching her mom garden there and now watching Sarah, just like next generation of it has been.”
Sarah added, “I didn’t identify as a gardener until the last few years, but she was definitely an example. She was a teacher. And in the summers she was off from work. She would be out there in the yard before we even woke up. And that’s where she would spend a lot of her days.”
