House and garden
October 4, 2005 by Phil Barron · Post a comment ⋅
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As mentioned yesterday, here is the newly-terraformed and planted front yard, along with equally new retaining wall:
If the wall and walkway look wet, it’s because I took this shot right after the morning watering. As many plants as M and I put in this weekend, there’s more yet to be done. We haven’t yet received the bulbs, but there should be less of a beat-the-devil deadline to get those in. A more leisurely approach will certainly be welcome.
Here’s an angled view:
I can identify just a few of the new plants; if you’ve any questions, I can ask M for the answers as she’s the project manager. I do know which one is the hypericum, which will come in handy during my next bout of melancholia.
Addendum: That strip between the sidewalk and the street will go eventually, replaced by some kind of ground cover.
Thanks so much for posting this. It looks splendid, and I can see why you wouldn’t want to mow that area.
By the way, wetting the concrete is apparently a technique for making it look better. Watch the decorating/do-it-yourself shows and you’ll see that the concrete/other masonry is often wet when photographed. I’m not sure what the reasoning is. Perhaps the color looks richer or more even or…?
I am also enormously impressed by the porch. I’m a sucker for a porch. My own is barely deep enough to hold a chair, but at least I have one. My fondest material dream is to have a back porch…hence the name of my blog. Someday.
Cherish that porch, and congratulations on completion of that major project!
Thank you for the kind words, Bitty!
On wetting the sidewalk: I will watch those home shows with a keener eye from now on. Man, that’s duplicitous.
About the porch: that’s a story in itself. Recently reconstructed (most of it) by a contractor and painted by M and myself, it’s an improvement over the old porch.
We don’t have a back porch ourselves. A brick patio, but no porch. In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever lived in a house with a back porch. Hmp.
One thing I’ve learned in the last 24 hours is that I need a new monitor! Whoa! (This is how bad it is: yesterday I didn’t know you had a brick house. My home monitor shows the photos a lot darker.)
Here at work I can now see what you really did. It looks even better than I thought it did.
So…what do you do about erosion? Are you at all worried about a big ol’ rainstorm sending everything down the incline?
Maybe I should shut up now.
The monitor can make the difference. I’ll post an image, then view it on my work monitor and think, “Boy, that looks really crappy.” My coworkers all have better monitors, I’ve noticed…
Erosion, inclines, big ol’ rainstorms: It’s certainly on our minds, but we’re just gonna see what happens. We raised the height of the retaining wall a bit for that reason, and we know we’ll have to lay down more mulch before winter. The plants are fairly deeply planted, and we just hope the roots have some time to take hold. This was a reason to plant them now: risking fall rains in order to give the plants time to prepare for the spring rain season.
Actually, the whole rain idea is making my stomach hurt a bit.
Did you use any of that weed-blocking “fabric”? I went looking. Here’s a link: http://www.homedepot.com/prel80/HDUS/EN_US/diy_main/pg_diy.jsp?CNTTYPE=PROD_META&CNTKEY=misc%2fsearchResults.jsp&BV_SessionID=@@@@0655058733.1128556975@@@@&BV_EngineID=cccladdflidgielcgelceffdfgidgjk.0&MID=9876
I have no idea if this will help at all, but it might. I believe part of the deal is that you use little spikey-things to hold the fabric down. Of course you already have the first layer of mulch down. Still.
We’ll be over here hoping you have a relatively dry fall & winter.
(I’m just jealous because there are lots of yard projects I want to do but can’t get any free help lined up to do them.)
Bitty: Nope, no fabric. Just prayer. :-D
Gotta dash; chat later.