Sunday, February 27, 2005
Planting more stuff...
This week, after it quit raining, I placed some more rocks on the south side of the shed to be the mowing strip for that garden. It is 5 feet deep and 12 feet long. It took about 35 stones to mark the outline. I began setting the stones down to level with the lawn, then quit. It is hard to dig out a bermuda grass lawn. There will be a similar garden on the north shady side of the shed. That is where the rest of the stones are now.
As part of the shed work, I designed a stone ramp to put in front of the doors to the shed. Right now the shed floor is about 9 - 12 inches above the lawn. The design for the ramp uses cheap landscape timbers to frame the stones within the slope and to support the last part of the ramp under the doors. The doors extend below the floor line, so the ramp will still have a bump getting into the shed. I should have enough stones to pave the mowing strip on the north side and pave the loading ramp, too. I may get some more stones.
The back of the shed will have a 5' x 10' block paved area on which to park the lawnmower. That will take several trunk loads of blocks.
All of this paving and gardening will generate some extra dirt. This dirt will be used to fill in the ramp in the front. So that is where all the little extra bits of dirt are going now. Later, when we do the paving of the main patio area off the deck, the dirt will go to fill in a low area in the north end of the back yard. That is an oval of about 15 x 20 feet with a depth sloping to about 4 inches in the middle area.
Anyway, yesterday I moved two of the Euonymus manhattan bushes to the fence line behind the shed. These will grow to 6 feet tall and wide and will block the view of the chain link fence behind the neighbor's house. Before I moved them, I cut them way back to just stumps. These plants are tough and will grow back quickly. I will not trim them in the future and they will be far enough from the fence that the neighbor will not have to trim them either, unlike where they are now.
I moved the big plants because I wanted to plant 3 hostas and they were in the way. I also had to remove the black plastic covering the ground under the euonymus m. to plant the hostas. I had to move the big plants because that is where the blueberrys that have been ordered will go, and I need the move them to cover the other fence that is not good looking behind the shed. It is all in the plan, but the hostas are still sitting there waiting to be planted.
I got tired of digging eventually, changed my shoes and took the car over to Wal*Mart in Lenoir City to get some dogwoods. Picked up four Cornus florida white dogwoods that are in the plan and three yellow stem dogwoods that are not. I also got another trellis for the Blaze rose that will go on the sunny side of the shed and some wire and long eyebolts for the grape arbor to go on the long wooden west fence and 8 bags of potting soil which I use for planting stuff on this Tennessee clay. The dogwoods are sitting where they will be planted. That was it for the day. I changed my muddy shoes, went inside and had a glass of wine and some cheese. A nice day, overall.
Today I planted some ferns, asian lilies, and hostas, but not those over by the garden where the blueberries will be. The ferns are by the bases of the two large trees, then the lilies, then some astilbe, and finally the hostas near the border of the mulch. Lots of roots near the trees...hard to dig even small holes. I also put in half a dozen daylillies by the north fence. These guys will need to be mulched later.
I put three canna lilies on the three sides of the sun dial.
Everything is underground so no pictures of all this.
End of day... cold...47 degrees, and time for another glass of wine, but instead I had hot coffee left over from breakfast and reheated.
As part of the shed work, I designed a stone ramp to put in front of the doors to the shed. Right now the shed floor is about 9 - 12 inches above the lawn. The design for the ramp uses cheap landscape timbers to frame the stones within the slope and to support the last part of the ramp under the doors. The doors extend below the floor line, so the ramp will still have a bump getting into the shed. I should have enough stones to pave the mowing strip on the north side and pave the loading ramp, too. I may get some more stones.
The back of the shed will have a 5' x 10' block paved area on which to park the lawnmower. That will take several trunk loads of blocks.
All of this paving and gardening will generate some extra dirt. This dirt will be used to fill in the ramp in the front. So that is where all the little extra bits of dirt are going now. Later, when we do the paving of the main patio area off the deck, the dirt will go to fill in a low area in the north end of the back yard. That is an oval of about 15 x 20 feet with a depth sloping to about 4 inches in the middle area.
Anyway, yesterday I moved two of the Euonymus manhattan bushes to the fence line behind the shed. These will grow to 6 feet tall and wide and will block the view of the chain link fence behind the neighbor's house. Before I moved them, I cut them way back to just stumps. These plants are tough and will grow back quickly. I will not trim them in the future and they will be far enough from the fence that the neighbor will not have to trim them either, unlike where they are now.
I moved the big plants because I wanted to plant 3 hostas and they were in the way. I also had to remove the black plastic covering the ground under the euonymus m. to plant the hostas. I had to move the big plants because that is where the blueberrys that have been ordered will go, and I need the move them to cover the other fence that is not good looking behind the shed. It is all in the plan, but the hostas are still sitting there waiting to be planted.
I got tired of digging eventually, changed my shoes and took the car over to Wal*Mart in Lenoir City to get some dogwoods. Picked up four Cornus florida white dogwoods that are in the plan and three yellow stem dogwoods that are not. I also got another trellis for the Blaze rose that will go on the sunny side of the shed and some wire and long eyebolts for the grape arbor to go on the long wooden west fence and 8 bags of potting soil which I use for planting stuff on this Tennessee clay. The dogwoods are sitting where they will be planted. That was it for the day. I changed my muddy shoes, went inside and had a glass of wine and some cheese. A nice day, overall.
Today I planted some ferns, asian lilies, and hostas, but not those over by the garden where the blueberries will be. The ferns are by the bases of the two large trees, then the lilies, then some astilbe, and finally the hostas near the border of the mulch. Lots of roots near the trees...hard to dig even small holes. I also put in half a dozen daylillies by the north fence. These guys will need to be mulched later.
I put three canna lilies on the three sides of the sun dial.
Everything is underground so no pictures of all this.
End of day... cold...47 degrees, and time for another glass of wine, but instead I had hot coffee left over from breakfast and reheated.
Monday, February 21, 2005
Picture of new stone border...
Here is a picture of the new stone border I put in around the patio. There is a stone path to the faucet on the wall. The stones there are set in sand to make them stable, othewise everything is just laid on the edge of the landscape fabric under the mulch. More to be added are a dogwood tree and a climbing rose on the brick wall plus ferns and astilbe at the edges of the deck to help hide the underdeck area.
New stone border... 
Saturday, February 19, 2005
Half a ton of stones placed...
Today I put the edging of river stones around the mulch by the deck in the yard. There is also a path through the mulch to the water spigot. Looks nice. If it doesn't rain, I will take a picture tomorrow, Sunday, and post it.
Sunday, February 13, 2005
The Fernbank museum had a special display of frogs. We went to see it and Allie was really fascinated by the little buggers. She stood close to the glass and looked. Dixie, her grandmother, picked her up for this better view of the green frog on the glass. We all had a great time. Her brother, Jack who is now four, liked to push the buttons on the displays and spent more time doing that than looking at the real frogs. Later, Allie got to pet a giant beetle. Jack didn't want to touch it.
The blue frog...or is it green. You decide.
The blue frog...or is it green. You decide.
JohnAndrewsThoughts
A new blog by John and Dixie Andrews.
We have an RV and do a little traveling. I thought I might post some pictures of places we have been and things we have done as well as some pictures (the better ones) of our family for all to see.
This weekend we went to Atlanta to see our now 2-year-old granddaughter, Allie. Here are some pictures I took while we were getting ready to go to the frog show at the Fernbank museum.
