More Landscaping

The yard is starting to look just a bit better. Over the weekend, I worked on the center island. I put up most of the terracing wall and hauled in 9 cubic yards of compost. It still needs another 3 cubic yards of compost and a few more blocks to finish the wall but it's looking pretty good at this point. The picture hides the fact that the wall changes height from front to back. In the front, it is three blocks high while in the back it has tapered down to only one block in height. The wall adds some much needed height variation to the yard.


When I dug out the stumps, I sifted out a number of stones. To make use of the stones, I put some effort into creating a dry stream bed. The picture doesn't really do justice to how decent the stream bed looks. It turned out to be a really nice way to make use of all the stones.


Last, but not least, I moved the stone bench next to the Moai head. It provides a decent place to sit in that corner of the yard.


There's still a lot more work to be done but at least the yard is showing a hint of potential.

Removal of the last stump is time for a victory dance!

It's been a few weeks since I've posted. Mainly because I've been working on the same yard work task, removing stumps. As of last Thursday night though, the last stump came out so that phase of the task is complete. Here's a picture of the last stump to be removed:

The large boulder had to be raised on it's side so the roots beneath it could be dug out. Quite the task!

Currently, I'm digging out a bit more dirt where the stumps were so that I can bring in nice new compost. That way, I can create some usable planting beds. I did manage to haul in 3 cubic yards of compost yesterday which was a good start,

Interestingly, Sky Nursery had a 25 to 40 percent off sale yesterday on most everything. Let's just say I spent a bit too much money on obtaining landscaping materials. I did manage to acquire a small foot bridge, about 4 foot in length, that I will use with the garden pond. Hopefully the bridge ends up looking good after I've installed it.

Stump removal continues

Stump number three of seven finally came out on Sunday. Hopefully, the remaining stumps are a bit smaller and shouldn't be as bad to remove as the first three. It's been a lot of work removing them but it is definitely worth it as I'm recovering a lot of area to work with. The picture shows the area where the stumps were. The picture doesn't have enough contrast between the hole and the surrounding soil so it's hard to tell how big the hole really is. It's pretty big, measuring about 20 feet wide by 20 feet long by about a foot deep on average. I smoothed out the hole so that it is fairly level at this point and will now backfill it with compost.

This is a picture of the tropical garden bed that contains one banana tree all by itself for now. There are some canna corms planted next to it but they haven't broke dormancy yet and are still below ground. Eventually I'll add some other tropicals such as ginger plants and the likes.