The Garden

So I promised pics of the garden in the spring. Well, How about late summer?

       We recently destroyed, and by that I mean completely removed almost all plant life and the rotted landscape timbers to be replaced with more permanent objects.  Between the drive and the 36 foot long bed, as well as wrapping around the large maple and pond area that connect at the corner to the back of the house, we placed stacking bricks. Theses are the kind that the top one hasa little lip in the back so it never gets pushed out of place while it rests on the one below.  Now maybe less people will hit it with their cars if they are more concerned about their car being damaged. (?)

       Next, the 12 feet of flower beds needed the walkways rebuilt.  Someone gave us a load of white bricks, which is really where the whole project started.  So Craig designed a new path layout (with my approval, of course!) and laid the bricks in a herringbone design.  Way cool! Didn't he do an absolutely gorgeous job?! That man of mine can do anything! The L shape on the right will be mirrored  "down" in this pic so there will be two entrances into the garden from the drive. There is also an arbor with an entrance at each end.  You can see the rose arbor at the top left.  It struggled through all the heat this summer but is doing well, finally and coming back.  The climbing Peace rose on the opposite side was just transplanted so it will need some time to catch up. 

My job was to work on the raised beds up against the house.  They are 4 feet deep and we wanted something that wouldn't rot or droop again when critters burrowed holes, so he used 4" wide cinder blocks.  Once the walls were built I got to be in charge of making them look good.  So I hand covered them with concrete to make the walls look like they were built out of real stones.  Later, when it's completely sculpted I will color the stones randomly with a variety of acid dyes so it looks like the stones were just like the other ones we're found and collected on the property.

So, you must think I'm crazy, right?  Actually it was fun! I did a base layer, which you can see on  the upper wall.  It is thin and flat and simply has the lines for the morter carved in so I know where rocks will be.  When it has cured I come back and slap on handfulls of wet cement (while wearing gloves, I learned the hard way!) and then it's all pretty much sculpting.  It's not as delicate as sculpting a face, and since it's a rock, who's to say I did it wrong?  The darker faux stones above were still were when I took this photo, in case you are wondering.