Monday, April 11, 2011

Destroy to Rebuild


The before picture of the shade garden wall and the after or mid-after shot since the true after comes when the new wall is built. The former wall had a curve to avoid the tree, now a stump, but the new wall will not have to deal with the trees, as they are coming down. The trees are way too close to the house, as is clearly evident whenever we have a storm with high winds. Since moving here, several trees which looked totally healthy toppled over, warning us each time to count our lucky stars that nothing or no one was hurt...unless you count electrical wires.
Our man Mike did the dismantling of the wall and it was like working on a chain gang for him, sledghammering the whole thing down over the course of 8 hours. I am way impressed with his strength. He is tiny, altho 5'11' tall he weighs only 117lbs. Yipes.

And here is the rubble. (note the dawg to the left) The rubble will stay there, forming the base of the new level floor.

Honestly, I am finding this hard to imagine, that we will ever get a flat spot here, where it slopes so much, but Mike and Dave are also planning on erecting a second wall and that will provide support to contain the new 'floor' which will be between those two rebars.

We plan on adding local fill, sand and then landscape tiles to form a formal garden patio, something like this. OK I am dreaming, but this is the goal.


The new wall will extend alongside the path, which knowing me, will sometime in the future get dressed up too.


My veggie bed has been de-weeded and new soil has been added. I decided to spend the money from my recent quilt sales on dirt and got the Miracle Grow stuff. I am hoping it makes a big difference in the resulting produce. I wish it had secret powers to keep away tomato hornworm, squash vine borer, and Colorado potato beetles. And while I am at it...VOLES. But I'll settle for bigger and better veg.

Spring is moving along at quite a clip and the dogwood are opening and trees are leafing out. So welcome.
The new hosta bed is looking more like a planting and less like a gravesite. Now that I see it like this, I am thinking about a few shade loving flowers, like astilbe, and maybe some ferns.
Speaking of gravesite...here's something surprising I found on my morning walk yesterday.

It was hit by a car during the night and stumbled into our driveway. Mike took it away, and for that I am very grateful.

8 comments:

  1. Melody, I LOVE LOVE LOVE your blog site!! I live in Memphis, and have found a solution for our mole and vole treatment! Castor oil and tabasco. Mix together and spray over the yard! It really works!
    Gwen

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  2. I can picture your patio there where the trees are now. It will look fabulous!

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  3. There is also a solution for the moths & worm. They hatch out of the ground.
    We dusted out tomatoes with Ortho product called Sevin dust and found out it stops the creepy & crawlies if we dust the ground when we plant and repeat once in awhile during the summer.
    Last year we had only 1 tomato worm on 30 plants.
    We did the same with the squash & zucchini.
    Looking forward to seeing your new landscape project done.
    For leaf blight we found a spray of a copper solution kept the plants green & healthy until spring.
    Go to Gardens Alive to order this.

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  4. I meant until frost.
    Spring is on my mind

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  5. Poor deer. Good luck with the gardening.

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  6. Have mercy girl. It wears me out just looking at the pictures of all that work! It is going to be beautiful, no doubt.

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  7. My goodness, you've been busy! Good thing to get as much done as possible before the summer sultry settles in. It's gonna be lovely.

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  8. Anonymous1:26 PM

    Ditto the comment about castor oil for moles!

    ReplyDelete

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