Lofty Hopes and Dreams

PROJECT 1.

THE NEGLECTED BACK YARD.

Lofty hopes and dreams.  That's how every story begins...

I love gardening magazines.  I love the look of lush, full plantings with pathways leading you...wait...begging you to explore further.  Along the way you find hidden treasures that give you some insight to the homeowners personality.  Birds sing to you as you continue your journey, stopping only to admire the way the light plays off the color of the leaves and the different textures that were used in the bed.

STOP. 

The image I just created was NOT my backyard.

I wanted it to be my backyard, but it wasn't. 

So this year we decided to make the dream a reality.  Let's start with some before images and descriptions. 

CONS:

• Our gutter downspout pops up right in a prime planting area, making it difficult to landscape around it.  You can't use mulch around it and you have to be cautious what you plant.  The back yard is also on a slight slope, so the water from the pop up downspout will wash away anything in its path (not just the immediate area around it)

• We have a large maple tree that the previous homeowners planted SMACK DAB in the middle of the back yard, also making landscaping difficult.  This tree means that much of our back yard is shaded / part shade.  The light itself is not a problem, but the location of the tree is.

• The gazebo takes up quite a bit of space in the backyard leaving only a small area for the pond itself.  Any hopes of making the pond larger simply aren't possible without removing either the tree or the gazebo. 

• When we installed our fence, it left a very narrow area on the side of the gazebo, also very shaded.

This is how the "Lilac Meadow" started in 2009

PROS:

•  When we installed our fence, it left a very narrow area on the side of the gazebo, also very shaded.  This gives me the ability to create a secret, secluded area in the yard because it is not visible from the backdoor.



Another picture of the "Lilac Meadow". This was taken in 2011. 



• There are SO many wonderful perennials that can be placed in shade / part shade. 

• By increasing the size of the pond flower bed itself, we also immediately created paths to get to and from different areas of the yard.   

Our projects this spring have included:

1.) I finished off the edges in the lilac meadow with some decorative bricks that matches the previously installed raised bed ( note the lower left side of the picture.)  We filled in the newly edged beds with dirt.  It will be home to hosta, primrose, astilbe, spiderwort and lamium. Currently, only a few hosta and the spiderwort are planted.  More pictures will be posted in the coming weeks as to how this area is progressing.  In the distance is the "secret garden"  I am looking for an old wrought iron gate to use as a gate to keep the dogs out of the veggies and hops.

2.) We've also added additional beds in front/around our raised vegetable garden.  One of them I affectionately call "grandma's garden".  It will be home to peonies and poppies.  These flowers remind me of both of my grandmothers.  One grew the most beautiful peonies, and the other belonged to the VFW.  Every year we sold buddy poppies.  I was buddy poppy queen when I was younger.  :) 

Currently only the peonies are installed. 

When we dug out the area around the pond, several daylilies had to be relocated.  Because I loved the look of the salvia, daylily and lavender combo in the front; I mimicked this in my backyard.  I absolutely love the color, texture and contrast of these plants.  They are in the lower bed. 

The big plastic covered mound in the background is sod.  It is sitting in what should be one of our vegetable gardens. At least it's not in the driveway!  :)

The new areas are desperately in need of mulch, which hopefully we will be doing the first weekend of May.

3.) We also installed a wonderful shade / part shade bed which includes a hydrangea bush, Solomon's seal, goats beard, hosta, columbine, toad lily, and carex.  On the edges of the bed that receive more sun we have creeping phlox, coneflower and black-eyed susan.    We sponsor a child in Ethiopia.  Her last name is Solomon.  I wanted to create a bed so that I could plant Variegated Solomon's Seal to remind me of her.

 

REALITY CHECK:  IF YOU ARE NOT AWARE OF THE FAMINE / DROUGHT IN AFRICA PLEASE EDUCATE YOURSELF ON IT.  IT IS DEVASTATING.  IF YOU ARE ABLE PLEASE HELP.  We found our sponsored family through Childfund International, but there are many organizations that have been founded to help those in Africa.  We are fortunate enough to have the EXTRA water for a flower garden, they are not fortunate enough to have even enough water to drink or grow FOOD.  Puts things into perspective doesn't it?

4.)  We placed rock in front of our back gate to tie into the pergola area.  I have a thing for curved lines and it was always just a bit off in my eye.  We had just enough rock left to fix it.  Lex is currently growing about 100 irish moss now to fill this area.



Before



After





5.) THE GRAND FINALE:

  We increased the size of our pond area and planted several perennials.

The goal was to tuck the pond away behind lush plantings. In our case there will be 5 hosta and various other plants in the foreground.  We solved the drainage issue by creating a dry creek bed that runs along side the bridge, the rest of the area outside the "creek" will be mulched. 

To fully enjoy the view of the pond you will need to venture down the path toward the bridge, stopping to watch the ornamental grasses swaying gently in the breeze.  Your eyes then notice the delicate foliage of the ferns against the contrasting broad leaves of the hostas.  Listen as the busy bumbles are flying from flower to flower enjoying their sweetness...birds sing to you as you continue your journey, stopping again to admire the way the light is playing off the color of the leaves and different textures that were used in OUR bed.

Lofty hopes and dreams.  That's how every story begins...

Natural Stone Flooring under Pergola

After two exhausting days of digging sod, two injured backs, two days of hauling stone and one day of shoveling dirt... THE PERGOLA FLOOR IS [almost] DONE.

The only thing left to do is a small area in front of our gate, which shouldn't take too long this weekend IF we can find more rock.

THE BEST PART? 

This project was done  FOR FREE.  ZIP. ZERO.  NO MONEY SPENT.

As I've been saying we have collected rock every sunday morning for the past several months and we have two compost bins... meaning... we make our own dirt.

The project itself was very easy.
Don't get me wrong... it required quite a bit of muscle, but no technical skills.

Are you thinking you LOVE it?

Do you want to know how you can do it too?

Well, read on... here's the scoop.

 

1.) Start off by scouring your roadsides for natural flat rock, pay close attention to areas along rivers where they are working.  This rock is FREE for the taking - OR - you could pay for rock at your local stone yard or quarry.  But seeing as we are the Duke and Duchess of Frugal... we collected ours.

2.) Remove any existing fire pits or furniture from the area you are working in.

3.) Cut sod out of area you are working in.  The amazing thing about sod is... in just a year or so it will turn into dirt again.  I mention this because if YOU want to avoid having a sod pile in your driveway you could stack it in a garden area and forget about it.  After many years of sod piles in our drive, this is the route we have taken.  We are using one of our vegetable gardens to compost our sod.

Obviously, we won't be using our raised garden this year.  You can see the area in the foreground  that was tilled.  This made it much easier to shovel the dirt into the wheelbarrow.

4.) After your sod is removed, install some depth/height gauges to insure that your floor is level.  Lex tapped some stakes into the ground and ran some string from one side to the other.  We used this string as a visual guide in determining which rock to place.  We built up areas where it was lower with smaller rock and more dirt.  You could buy sand or construction gravel for this purpose too, but as I said earlier we are "fugal".

We opted to have a "sunken" fire pit look.  We did not place stone under the fire pit.  We placed stone around it.  This gave it a custom "built in" look.

 In case you can't see the smile in the picture above...

• I AM WOMAN HEAR ME ROAR

• I AM EXCITED TO BE DONE LAYING STONE

•  And last but not least...I am thinking about the COLD BEER waiting for me at the end of the day.

5.) After our fire pit and stones were in place we tilled our garden until we had enough dirt to fill about 15 (no joke) wheelbarrows. We then used the dirt to fill in the areas between the stones.  The dirt became our grout.  We used a push broom to level it out and push it into all of the cracks and crevices. 

6.) After it was smoothed out and all areas were filled, we watered down the entire site.  The water will help the loose dirt to firm up and become more grout like.  After it dries tomorrow, we will re-sweep the stones add more dirt.  You should expect the dirt (and stones) to settle and become lower than they initially are. But that's OK.  With a little patience and initial prep work, you'll end up with a flat surface.

CHEERS !

A frosty mug of Lex's homebrew.  mmm, mmm good.

Here's to another thing off our list!