You'll never guess what I've been doing

When we last left off in the front yard, Greg and I had rented a sod cutter and removed grass up to this point. I wanted to stay outside of the drip line of the dogwood tree, hence this abrupt halt. Because I had things to do, like buying pots and going to Disneyland, it's sat like this for over six weeks.

The weeds decided to have a rager while we were gone. Just wait until their father hears about this.

I had to dig down the soil here because it was sloping toward the house. Back when we removed the cement slab in the backyard, the bobcat was driven through this area, badly compacting the soil in the worst way. So I had to dig down several inches and grade everything away from the house.

Then I had to remove the sod by hand from the rest of the areas where the pathway would go. For the record, I'm sick of removing sod.

Then I had to grade the soil away from the house there, too. For the record, I'm sick of regrading soil.

Faced with yet another large pile of dirt, my first thought was, "I should just buy a bunch of pots." That's more fun than transporting the dirt to the truck, then to the soil recycler.

One yard of cedar chips filled the area perfectly.

I still need to install rock edging on the other side of the pathway and figure out how I'm going to plant the area between my yard and my neighbor's lawn (if anyone has ideas, I'm all ears). The whole thing looks kind of haphazard right now but at least it smells nice. It doesn't help that we're still missing a board from the gate and the posts still need to be cut down, and the rock wall got knocked askew when the sod cutter went through here . . .

Because I'm an awful person, I left this strip of sod that will be impossible to mow (have fun, Greg!). I could've removed it but I was tired and hot and the debris bin was full.

All of these details need to wait because it's supposed to be in the 90s this week, which means I'll be crouching inside by the A/C register, whining about being hot. It's hard being this much of a weather wimp.

I made you a cedar chip wasteland

I have officially spent two weekends putting out a lot of effort to make a pathway, a pretty simple one at that. Apologies for how many crappy phone pics there are here, I was chugging along and couldn't be bothered to do anything beyond grabbing my phone out of my back pocket.

After we removed the sod along the driveway I needed to dig down a bit so it could hold the cedar chips I wanted here. I was hoping to soften up the ground before I had to dig, so I thought about how to make it rain. A ha, I thought, I'll put out yard debris bags! You know the bags--the ones that get heavy so easily and turn to mush and break if it rains even a little? We put four of those, filled with sod removal scraps, out on the street and of course the heavens opened up. But it made digging easier.

I found buried stuff because I always find buried stuff.

The oil tank that we knew was here.

A pretty large cavity, probably from a critter long ago (I hope long ago).

I was like, how can I make sure I move this soil as many times as humanly possible? I know, I'll dig it up, transport it to a tarp under the dogwood, then transport it back to the driveway and into Greg's truck so it can go to the soil recycling place. My back was not amused.

I used thinner, taller pieces of the same rock I've used to edge the beds elsewhere in the garden. I just wanted a simple line to say "chips here, mulch there."

It looks goofy now because the chips are bright orange. I have a skosh more room (just like Levis) in the beds, so I need to rearrange things a bit. It helps that a few weeks back I removed six or seven of the rose bushes here. All the rain had really softened the ground and they popped out with almost no effort. I got a little carried away and started removing them left and right.

Before

Before

Now I just need something low-growing and drought-tolerant to weave through and unify everything.

Now

The best part is that cedar chips break down and feed the soil, so when a future owner inevitably plants lawn here, they'll find the soil to be rich and loamy. Circle of life and all that.

I finished up by vacuuming the driveway. If that's wrong, I don't want to be right.

More conundrums

I'm going to rename this blog Just a Girl With an Inability to Correctly Estimate How Much Soil/Compost/Chips She Needs. Ever since I ordered way too much soil for the raised beds I've erred on the side of less when ordering soil and amendments. I figured the pathway would call for 1/4 yard of cedar chips. Keep in mind, I didn't measure anything, that just sounded like a nice number.

I went to the wood waste place and discovered that the smallest amount they'll sell you is 1/2 yard. I asked the guy to go light when filling the truck (he did), so of course it fell short of how much I needed when I got home.

A little low

I had to go back the next day and get another 1/2 yard which got the pathway to the level I wanted.

Better

Next up: adding drainage to the berm in the form of gravel or chicken grit, based on Loree's instructions (thank you Loree!), getting more plants in, and figuring out a way to mulch the agaves with gravel or stone while mulching everything else with fine bark mulch. Any bright ideas out there? I think I need some sort of border to divide the two mulches but I don't think bender board is going to cut it in this case.

I think I might have to build a rock wall/perimeter where the red line is. So much for avoiding the purchase of stone right now.

I'm officially sick of digging

Digging holes, that is. I will never be sick of Digging. Pam's up there with Margaret Roach for me.

I spent this weekend digging out the path in the front yard. Someday I want decomposed granite and beautiful stone edging, but for now we're going to do cedar chips. I needed some sort of line in the sand to say "chips go here, mulch there." I went to Home Depot and decided that I couldn't stomach putting plastic edging in the yard. It will break down over time and if I'm going to have pathways decomposing I want them to be made of natural materials.

So cedar bender board it is.

Anyone want to take bets on how long it will take before this starts to break down? I'm guessing this winter mostly because I know I'll step on it before then. This stuff shatters if you look at it wrong.

I've also built up a bit of a berm behind the rain garden for agaves. An incredibly generous woman named Sarah contacted me, offering up her agaves in trade for something that wouldn't poke her toddler. How great is that? I'm hoping the raised area will provide enough drainage that I can put them in the ground and not have them decompose in the winter. I have pretty good drainage in the front yard but I want to give the agaves every chance to succeed during the wet months.

I know, my MS Paint skills are incredible.

I saw an image somewhere of a giant agave paired with a fountain grass that looked incredible and I'd love to recreate it. I'm running into the problem where all the pretty grasses I see have pale pink blooms, which I think will look yucky with all the orange stuff I have planted. Of course, I have a metric ton of Sedum Joy planted, which will be pale pink, so I don't know why I'm worried. My color compositions are always a mess.

Now ask me about the time when I was pulling the hose across the driveway, forgot about the pavers I had stacked there, backed into them, then fell backwards over them into the roses. I hope one of my neighbors at least got a good laugh from it. Related note: do you know how hard it is to get mulch slivers out of your backside? Send band-aids.