This will be a long post, but wanted to show what I've been up to this spring. We've been on a mission since last Fall to transform our backyard. So, starting last September-ish we had a paito installed...I posted back then but this is what we had before:
then we installed the patio:
So this spring I added some landscaping around that patio....very simple stuff but it enhanced it a bit:
(you can see the planter boxes I build as well for our back of the house windows..added planters to the patio also) So....with that portion out of the way there was something that I had wanted to do ever since we moved in. In the picture below (taken 4 years ago) you can kind of see in the bottom right corner where there is a natural rock face....this is where they had chiseled out the rock face to install a storm drain that runs down the back of all our properties. You can also see in that pic how the rock kind of peeks out every now and then along that ridge line. I was convinced that the rock face ran along that ridge line and that it was just backfilled after they installed the storm drain.
So, Fast Forward 4 years and I remained convinced I could reclaim that portion of my yard which was a small hill.....that I could dig out to the rock face and have a deeper..flatter yard.
Here's the back yard which show the small hill...early this spring (late winter)
You can see in this pic I started carving a bit at the top of the hill to see what all was under that dirt.
A couple hours in and this is what I uncovered:
So, I thought to myself maybe I just expose the top line of rock and then put a small knee high landscape wall at the bottom of the hill and then landscape/plant all the area between the two. The guy I know who built my patio has an area on his property he calls 'the brick yard' and he told me some time ago that I could use whatever materials I wanted out of there because it's all old stock that he can't use anymore. It's all surplus from old jobs that really isn't enough to start a new one. So, my dad and I went out one day and picked up some nice blocks that otherwise would have probably cost me $3 or $4 bucks a piece at least....these were free:
So I started to dig and carve into the hill a bit....you can see how I thought maybe I'd thrown the wall in and then expose the top rock and landscape in between. BUT....this small strip of digging took me 6 hours and was a pain in the butt!!!!
So, I got to talking about this with the Son (and guy who actually installed the patio for us last year) and he told me that he was about to renovate his house and needed the construction documents drawn up. I, worked as an architectural draftsman for 7 years...so, he proposed we trade some drawing for some excavation work. Done deal. Moving dirt by shovel, pick and wheel barrel sucks.
He asked me what I wanted to do and I told him my real desire was to dig out all the dirt back and see if that rock face extended all along the back of our property or not. He said he was game....so.....
In (4) short hours he turned that hill into this:
They had just back filled with all the rock that was left over after they installed the storm drain....as I suspected. We used a lot of those large chunks to form a neat little wall and to create a burm on the hill side that was angled to the storm drain in my back yard.
Even after he had did the bulk of the work with the bobcat I ended up wheel barreling (15) loads of small chunks and dumped them into a creek behind my neighbors house. Then I power washed the rock face and started the process of getting it shaped up:
Did some prep work on the dirt to install sod and seeded the top of the hill with grass and wild flower seed:
Notice in that pic ^^^^ that I had moved all of the blocks Clark had given me to the top of the rock face. I still had a plan for those. I still made a small knee high wall about 5 foot back from the rock face front. I also used some of the natural stone we unearthed to create a border at the base of the wall.
So then 'all' that was left was to get some mulch and spruce it up. I have plans to plant the upper tier mulched area....probably going to go with perennial grasses and easier to maintain plants like that. Ones that will get some height. Anything behind that small wall I've blasted with wild flower seed and plan to just let that and the burm return to natural state. I planted some Hastas under the trees because it's shady over there but the base of the wall I'm just going to pick a full sun ground cover plant and let it take over. I've stuck a couple ivy sprouts in a couple of the water run off cracks in the wall that have dirt in them....but I know it'll be a season or two before I get the foliage to where I want it. But, here's where I stand today. I can't tell you how satisfying it is to have this more or less done after (4) years of dreaming about it.
This is the area that was already chiseled out....I built the base up a bit to add dirt and mulch to plant:
Pic taken this morning:
There you have it.....my spring time project
Sorry for the long post but wanted to share with you all....I'm just really excited about it