OR
What I do for Fun

I’ve been slowly making progress on a garden project since March and finally can see the end in sight.

As usual I forgot to get before photos.
It’s not that I really forget, it’s more like I hate to preserve an ugly image.

So here’s a little something that’s occupied in total about 80 hours of my time. It’s only taken me 4 months to get this far. And people wonder when I tell them I’m extremely slow.

Well first off – I hand pick every piece of stone after driving nearly 50 miles to the ‘quarry’. Getting a load of stone is a day’s work in itself. Those sandstone slabs are often the size of the bed of my truck. Let’s see how many you can get on your vehicle by hand let alone how long it would take ya.

While the front yard isn’t very large one of the goals was to eliminate the lawn. Another consideration was to have the yard look interesting in the winter. A real challenge when the ground goes bare around here. A bed of mulch isn’t all that interesting for months on end.

I had to put on my thinking cap but since I have rocks in my head – that’s what I came up with. Use stone to take up space – extend the walk – put in a dry stream bed and scatter some boulders around.

I’ve yet to get the all the boulders and finish the stream bed but you get the idea. And as you can see I have plenty of planting yet to do. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to get everything I needed in one truck load. Delays – delays – another trip to Long Island is going to have to wait.

Those hostas have to be moved – that’s a sunny spot and I don’t want to waste the sun on Hosta. I’m thinking Coreopsis (Zagreb and Creme Brulee), Coneflowers and Black-eyed-Susans will make a good start with some Sedum growing along the walk and stream to soften the edges.

But all this is being put on hold while I do something I never have before. I went and rented a bobcat to use on a job. It’s being delivered tomorrow and I’m going to have to play with it for two weeks. I got carried away when I order this stone and once delivered I realized I wasn’t about to move all this by hand.

Looks like this is going to be a rather large patio. Some of those sandstone slabs are 7 and 8 feet long and about as wide.