Midday in the garden of good and ugly

We finished the front garden last week, and now hopefully will never have to weed out there again.  The before picture is just below.  I sort of regret not having taken the shot prior to ANY sort of work being done, but there is a part of me that breathed a sigh of relief at the lack of evidence.  Such an unseemly display of wild and wanton flora ought not to be flaunted.

We rented a roto-tiller to loosen up the top few inches of hard-packed soil so we could dig it up, thereby making room for the layer of limestone to go down.  And hoo, boy!  Did the roots ever not want to come outta there!  I had some fun with my hatchet that day, lemme tell you.

I discovered that it is painstakingly, agonisingly annoying to dig a trench and pour and level sand to ensure the foundation layer of a small retaining wall goes in level.

This here's about half way through the entire process, so it's not so much a 'before' pic as it is a 'during' pic:

(Bigger pic)

We had already ripped out the ugly green, plastic edging that held back the dirt (we shovelled out a LOT), and used a bunch of it to build up the level behind the wall under construction there.  The rest went to our neighbour's front yard, where they conveniently want to put a planter under their front window.  Everybody wins!  Then we ported three truck loads of crushed limestone to shovel onto the driveway and subsequently onto the layers of newspaper and landscaping fabric we laid down.

Then, while Amy was away for her Girls' Weekend just past, I searched about for a little bistro set to spruce up the joint and surprise her when she got home.

*****

(Bigger pic)

Little did I know that the end of July is not the best time of year to go looking around for garden-type accessories.  The season, I was told, started to come to an end at the close of June.  I was a month late.  After spending two days toting the boys around to a myriad of stores and making innumerable phone calls, I was forced to balance the love of my wife against my erstwhile bastion of moral fortitude.  As usual, the wifely bits won out the day:

I went to Wal-Mart.

They had pretty much exactly what I was looking for (at such a low price, too!), and it came in a single cardboard box.  I bolted it together the night before Amy got home and thought the lily made a nice addition.  Amy likes lilies.

Next: the backyard pine tree ring of DEATH!

Comments

[Mark]

Nice work, Si-mahn (meant to sound like the Ferengi when they say the word "human." Oh, Lord, I am a geek.)

Ha! You went to Wal-Mart! I would tease, but we find ourselves there at least once a week. Wait, that gives me every right to tease.

I hope the lady likes the surprise set. I was anxious to see these pics because I didn't know what you meant when you kept typing "crushed limestone." Now I see you meant what I typically call "big gravel." I'm sure it's not really that, but it looks like it.

[marian]

That's lovely. What a good husband you are....

[Moksha Gren]

Looks great, Simon! The bistro set is a nice touch.

That first layer on a retaining wall is horrible. If you get that right, the rest are a breeze. But it's only barely worth the hassle.

I'm digging through these shots, looking (as I do) for obscure details. You've not given me much to work with here. I can see your truck, a cute little bird house, and evidence of an ADT security system. I see some sort of odd wire looping by the front door and am hoping it has nothign to do with said security system...cuz that would be sorta the opposite of secure.

Since I was unable to satisfy my geeky need to fit these shots into the context of you larger yard, I had to dig through your archived house photos. They also give a general "before" shot so I can now be truly impressed with your work ;)

[Simon]

Mark, yes, you really are a geek. That Ferengi phrase makes me think of the line, "Play Domjat, Human?" from DS9. But that's WAY off topic! 'Big gravel' is much easier to understand, you're right.

Marian, I try. I fail horribly sometimes, but on average I think I'm coming out ahead.

Moksha, sometimes you scare me. (Sometimes?!) When you say you can see my truck, yes, thats its reflection in the window. The wire loop by the window is our TV cable. And since I no longer have my house photo album linked on the main page of my blog, you saved the address to it (since it is still active) or ferretted it out. Spooky!

[Moksha Gren]

No..nothing that scary (although I was tempted to let you just keep believing it...keep you on your toes) The far more boring truth is that I simply remembered you had posted a picture of your house back in your Archives. I remembered you had made a comment about the fall leaves...so that narrowed the months I had to search to only a few. It was worth a little bit of digging...it was not worth pre-emptively backing up every picture you've ever posted so that I could peruse your personal photos from the comfort of my very own Simian Shrine ;)

However...now that I know there is a house album to be ferretted out...I'm not sure I can resist the temptation of searching for it.

[Émilie B]

It is true when they say to kids everything you say on the internet, you can never take back.

Congratulations on a lot of grunt work completed, and I'll agree with "underlayers suck" thing. It's the same with every project, however : proper time spent in preparation saves double time on execution.

I'm glad you added the lily, otherwise I would have been all "what, no flowers?" Still though, I gotta ask : do future plans involve adding perennials of some sort in there? (I'm in a big perennial phase.)

[Simon]

Émy, future plans include adding flower pots lined up on the wall portion of the rock garden. (No weeding!) I'm going to leave that to my darling wife since most things green that I touch turn brown. Not from lack of skill, mind you, more like total apathy.

[Émilie B]

That will be a nice touch :) I'm sure Amy will make it beautiful.

With my current setup, I get away with weeding about 4 times during summer, but 3 or 4 years hence, I expect the perennials to have filled up the flowerbeds, thus making life hard for weeds of all kinds. My next objective for the yard is a fence around the backyard. It's a couple thousand bucks, unfortunately... will have to wait a bit.