Front yard landscaping - June 2011

Preliminary:

Mom and I have talked several times about terracing the front yard.  In May Se started designing a terrace for the catalpa side.  He even marked lines with catalpa bean pods where we would want to remove sod and dig.

The original Se design was for retaining walls using bricks.  But Mom had seen some yards that used rock for the retaining wall.  She thought about the large rocks scattered about our yard.  So the design changed to look more natural, with rocks of different sizes and shapes forming the retaining wall. 

Then on Memorial Day, Se and Mom started the actual work.   We started taking pictures a couple of days into the project.  I helped a little but it was almost all Se and Mom.  They worked early in the morning until the shade moved off the project then in the late afternoon when there was shade again.

Part I:  Flower bed

Se and Mom made a decision to put a flower bed along the sidewalk leading to the house.  We would like to put some perennials in the bed eventually but felt it would be too late by the time we finished this year.

As they excavated, Mom and Se discovered sprinkler pipes and large catalpa roots.  They used smaller rocks to hide these items.  It made for some nice divisions in the flower bed.

The flower bed was made ready for planting on Saturday, June 11th.  We decided to go shopping for plants later in the afternoon.

Mom and I chose some annuals that were already flowering, mostly petunias and pansies.  Mom decided to plant them even though it was getting late.  The evening was pretty long.  However, the planting led to an adventure:

Skunk!

As Mom started to work on planting the flowers, she heard birds across the street being very noisy.  She discovered a young skunk working its way down the sidewalk by Burnworth's.  The skunk eventually went into their south shrubs.  The birds kept at it and it eventually re-emerged.  Mom was planting as fast as she could, while keeping an eye out for the skunk.  Then the skunk came across the street and wandered around the sidewalk and driveway of our yard.  As soon as it came across, Mom opted to leave the planting and come inside.

We watched the skunk from inside the house.  Mom thought it was gone and started to go back outside.  There was the skunk on the second step from the door.  She came back in pretty fast.  The skunk finally wandered away and Mom finished planting the flowers even though it was almost dark..  She planted about 5 dozen plants.

Flowers

The following pictures show the flower bed just after it was planted.  The last 3 pictures were taken July 16th. 

Front Excavation

With the flower bed created and the flowers planted, the area between the front sidewalk and the caltapa became the focus of the project.  The ground around the catalpa was raised to a mild slope.  The boundary of the raised area is about 2 feet from the catalpa trunk. At first, concrete blocks held up the raised area.  The area from the rocks to the sidewalk was excavated.  Then the blocks were replaced by rocks.  All these rocks already existed somewhere in our yard.

 The original plan was to dig the entire bed to planting depth, put sifted dirt back in to an appropriate slope, and plant some ground cover. The modified plan, after Mom and Se spent 10 days in Utah, and then 9 of the next 10 days had daily thunderstorms (some very heavy), we have decided to put in mulch which we can get free from the city.  We plan to put some of our other rocks in to help hold the mulch and make the area more interesting.  We would still like to put some perennials in but we are afraid it might be too late in the season this year.