Phoebe's yard

Phoebe's yard was looking pretty dog eared (..oops, sorry) and since the deer were (are) eating everything else on this place, it seemed logical to put all the yummy flowers (and now a few yummy vegetables) in the dog's yard. Phoebe doesn't seem to mind and hasn't even smashed any plantlife in her exuberance...plus, there is a nice view (now) from the den and one bedroom.

The soil in this part of the yard is hardpan so lots of compost and potting soil and shoveling have gone on in the last 5 months. Its too bad I don't have any photos of what this area looked like a dozen or so years ago. My brother tells me it was all shrubbery, some of which reached across the 25' expanse to touch the house. I'm kind of surprised I don't remember that. Even though I was living in Oregon then, I did come down to visit every spring....maybe I never looked out of the windows?

At any rate, the first photo is how the area looked last December when I got this wild hair. No, that isn't true because I don't see the 6' tall Texas privet, nor the 5' rose-with-no-name, nor the big patch of Vinca major. It is true that this was in December but earlier in December it was even uglier. (can you imagine?)


The photo with all the clever labels (for me, clever) was taken in March. Wine barrels had been moved, re-soiled, planted with sweetpeas and Bronze fennel and a lovely phormium..oh, and the lettuce and Swiss chard. The stump had been rolled in from another part of the yard so that the birdbath would have a base.
Then I got a yard of compost dumped into the bed of my pick-up, drove it home on what felt like back wheels only, dumped it in my yard, then wheel-barrowed it to Phoebe's yard. It was delightfully light and fluffy.

Once the river rock and a short bit of rail road tie started to define the bed, it seemed only logical to make a "cute little path" from the gate to the patio slab; a distance of about 30'.

My neighbor makes lovely, FLAT pathways. He says "Use a flat shovel!" Yeah, WELL. My flat shovels must be duller than a book spine or I'm really a wuss because I couldn't move more than an inch of hardpan at a time. Back to the regular shovel. The path ended up a tad bumpy and lumpy but that's okay. Phoebe doesn't care and neither do I. I dug out about 15' before finding other things to do for a couple of weeks. (It was too hot to dig. Then it was too cold to dig. Then it rained. Mostly I was lazy.)

Thursday while I was at work, the Decomposed Granite Fairy left me a 1/4 yard of light blond DG! So........Friday morning I was out with the shovel, the wheelbarrow and a lot of good intentions. Had to finish digging the path then laid the weedblock, and dumped in load after load of DG....finishing up about 15 minutes before the rains came.

It has been raining ever since so the path looks a bit more like a stream bed right now but that's okay too. the rest of the path, at least on the north side, will be lined with more river rock and succulents will be planted along the edge.

I need to invite the neighbors over to walk back and forth on it for a day to pack it down real good. ;>) Pretty sure if I supply the wine, they will come...

Wish I knew how to make this thing (Blogger) let me show more than 4 photos at a time. Guess I need to borrow someone's 5 year old kid to show me how.