Chapel Street Garden - Hardscape Construction
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Chapel Street - Canton, NY
I started this project last year and returned this spring to finish up the hardscape before planting time. One last thing that needed to be done was to create a dripline bed of crushed stone. With no gutters the water falling from the second story roof dug quite a line in the sod.
I cut a new edge just beyond the dripline deep enough to run a line of blocks level with the concrete pad that extended from the house foundation. The dripline bed will be filled with 1A crushed stone and average 3 inches deep.
The Hosta, Lily of the Valley and violets already established along the concrete slab will have no problem coming up through the small stone. In fact the old common orange day lilies planted in the dripline bed on the other side of the house are already well started. The beds were done in stone since mulch or soil would splatter against the house every time it rained.
The edging created to deal with the rain running off the roof was the easy part. It was pretty clear what the area ‘needed’ and installing the edging and filling with crushed stone is a job anyone can do. The real challenge was the front of the house. I declined the opportunity of ripping out the old concrete steps and building new. That job went to a contractor who used manufactured block.
As you can see the new steps were fairly massive yet didn’t quit fit in. Looking straight ahead the steps and planters seemed too narrow. The house front needed some balance and that’s where I started. I put on a good show last summer hauling in some very large boulders on my little pick up truck. A good guess puts the largest just over one ton.
With the boulders in place I’m now ready to plant. I don’t have a real plan although I do have ideas. We’ll see what I’ll end up with soon. Right now I can see Sedums, Coreopsis ‘Zagreb’, small hybrid Lilies, Black eyed Susans, Mini Garden Phlox, Coneflowers and Iris as the primary plants. But that can all change in a split second. Who knows what surprise awaits me at the nursery. (I always expect to be surprised - my memory is getting bad enough that I now have pleasant surprises every day)
An assortment of low growing Junipers will round out the planting in and around the block planters. I’ll be as surprised as everyone one else when finished. I never know exactly what I’m going to do until I’ve finished. I wouldn’t be surprised if I plant a few more boulders. Afterall they need less care and seem less expensive than perennials these days.
I like to say this is the type of job only an Idiot would do. Who else besides an idiot would attempt to move boulders weighing nearly a ton by hand. In the near future I will be posting ‘Boulder Moving for Dummies’ once I get some step by step photos for the instructions.
The next installment from Chapel Street will cover the planting. I’m going to try restraining myself a bit but I’m pretty sure the homeowner is going to suffer a bit of sticker shock when all the plant materials are added up. It’s not that I don’t warn people. I do. But I guess it’s a fine line between Expensive and Dear Lord! We’ll see what you think when I finish.
