Another year, another garden

When we first moved into our house in 2008 we had grass. Lots and lots of grass. We have a large lot (for our neighborhood of small lots, that is) and we had one garden—the standard landscaped garden in the front of our house, crammed full with too many bushes and even one poor out of place blue spruce, planted just a foot or two away from our front porch. Before we actually bought, the inspector had told us that after moving in we would have to fix the grading around the foundation of the house because in certain areas the grass was actually growing up past the siding, a sure fire way to invite bugs, he'd warned us.

And so our garden planning began. We moved in late March so we had some time to stare at our grassy expanse and consider plans for our future outdoor space. Some plans were easy—a 1-3 foot removal of grass from around the foundation, fixed grading, and a variety of native plants in its stead—while other plans came to us only later after seeing the yard take shape. The thing we knew we wanted to do was cut way down on the amount of grass and replace it with native flower and vegetable gardens. We had an eye toward attracting butterflies and hummingbirds, adding trees, and possibly outlining or edging our yard with garden space.

That first summer we accomplished much. We made short work of the grading around the house and also added a shaped garden to the very corner of our lot with the help of Jon's family over a Labor Day weekend. The new garden gave us a place to transplant some of the overcrowded bushes from the front landscaping, including the little spruce tree. Later in the year we added yuccas and some brown eyed susans as well.

Along with the grading we extended the outlet for our sump pump to beyond the edge of the house and made a pretty rock river for it. Or at least, we thought it was a rock river. Shortly thereafter we realized that, thanks to the output of our sump pump, that just wasn't going to cut it, so we decided to draw the water farther away from the house and into a rain garden, which we added in many hours of work over the fourth of July weekend.

You call that a rock river?

Now that's a rock river.

The addition of a small butterfly garden to the northeast corner of our lot rounded out our work for 2008, leaving the lawn looking like this:

You almost can't see the little butterfly garden over there in the corner! That's okay, we definitely took care of that in fall 2009 when we put in a drainage trench/rock river to divert the nieghbor's sump pump away from our new tree:

In 2008 we loving filled the rain garden with native and water tolerating plants, but word to the wise, a sump pump does not a good rain garden make; the influx of water in the spring was too much and we lost all but a handful of our plants. We spent the summer rethinking our drainage plan, took the river all the way through to the other side in September 2009, making this our not-so-rain garden:

While The 2010 growing season brought most of the 2009 perennial plantings back (a huge improvement over the previous year), it highlighted some issues with the new drainage trench in the butterfly garden—namely a low spot and standing water at the outlet—so we decided to go forward not only with our 2010 plans but with our "down the road" plans as well. 2010 plans were to remove the rest of the sod to extend the butterfly garden up to our neighbors' fences (no more mowing/weed whacking in that tight space!), and the "down the road" plans were to connect all the existing gardens with a full yard edge garden.

And that brings us to the first weekend of August 2010 with 5 cubic yards of dirt and 1.5 tons of 18 inch boulders.

Ahhh, so that's what 1.5 tons of 18 inch boulders sound like when falling from a truck. Then we had to roll them down the hill. Thank goodness for that empty lot behind us, eh?

Ollie was a big help. Almost as much of a help as Cookie when we were looking up our property lines on the map.

It's now done, though, and even planted, mostly with transplants from new growth on some of the happily growing native plants we added last year. Four rocks mark the places awaiting trees, probably 2 maples and 2 river birch, to be added over the next few years beginning with at least one this fall.

I think this is our best addition yet and we are really pleased with the way it defines our space while connecting all three gardens and working in the necessary drainage paths. There is always another project, though. Next year the space to the south in the above picture (taken facing ESE) will be made into a patio with a fire pit, a project that is likely to be our most ambitious yet (which is hard to believe after muscling 1.5 tons of boulders). We also plan to add another raised vegetable garden (our current three aren't shown here but are in line with and west of the southeast garden, just out of the above picture).

So here it is, one final before and after (although there really isn't a picture of "before", meaning back when it was all just grass).

End of the 2008 summer season (our first summer in the house)

View from the SE corner on 8/2/2010.

Project 365, days 204-210

204—A rainy Friday at the Art Fair, so we drove down, picked up some dinner, and ate it with good wine at Gram and Grandpa's; 205—Slip n' Slide with good friends; 206—Celebrating 7 years (one day early) with our wonderful families; 207—mowing around the rabbit food in our lawn; 208—a Cabbage White butterfly in our garden; 209—a visit to the optometrist to get new glasses for me (different from those shown); 210—Cookie helping us consult the neighborhood plan in order to find our property lines before doing some major yard renovating.

Seven years

It actually doesn't sound like a lot of time, especially both of our parents celebrating their fortieth this year and the next. When we look back, though, and look at not the years but the experiences, that's when it feels like it starts to add up. It's strange to realize that we've had the blog for five of those years, so a lot of those experiences have been journaled here over time. In 2005 there was our first furniture purchase, a trip to D.C., separations, and togetherness. And who can forget Raspberry? In 2006 it was all about Calvin, of course, or about being new parents, with an occasional reference to pets, zoo trips, or bald heads. In 2007 he got there was great sadness, many joys, and even some travel. 2008 found us in a new house in a new town, traveling to much more distant lands than before, and trying our hands at new things that happen to be still in progress (I can't believe how small our veggie garden was then!). 2009 was our first ER visit (can't forget that), more travel and trying new things (and hey, I knew the garden got bigger). It's amazing how much has changed. Now let's come back from that short jog down memory lane.

We have wonderful families who gathered last night to celebrate our seven years together with great conversation and fabulous food—thank you to everyone for the food (because everyone except us made something), the fun, the love, the gifts, the all around great time.

And we tried to get one of just the two of us, but some strange little tyke kept running up to join in the fun, not to be left out.

Slip n' Slide

We had long planned to spend the afternoon with our friends John and Ashley at their nearby splash zone, but the weather was so questionable all day that we opted to spend it splashing around at their house instead. Lo and behold, did you know that the Slip n' Slide isn't just for kids anymore? Or at least it isn't after a couple of mint juleps.

This one is Jon, in case you couldn't tell.

The only problem is that there wasn't enough slide for adult momentum, as shown here by John. Easily remedied with a second slide, of course. We'll try that next time.

Project 365, days 197-203

197. A lesson on Raptors at the library that was intended for older children but had Calvin's full and undivided attention for the whole hour anyhow.
198. Our new 1960s rotary phone for $5 from the best garage sale ever (wait until we share our 1950s magazine scores!). The best part? It really works.
199. The upstairs hall has a duck in it.
200. Of his own making at the annual pre-Art Fair Townie Party.
201. The new garden path it took us all day to put in on Sunday.
202. A2 Art Fairs, from our visit on opening day.
203. Our new awesome shelf made for us by a talented woodworker as a gift from my Godmother. Our redecorating is really starting to take shape.