After trying to sell our house last year, April through September, we took it off the market to hunker down and wait out this recession. Some of the feedback we got about our property had to do with the yard - no fenced yard, no obvious property borders - and since we are staying here we decided it was time to get those privacy shrubs up and put some time/money into the yard now - not to mention add some value to the house when we do sell! So after a long rainy winter it is time to come out of the slumber and get back outside and work on our yard!
My main issue is I am no good at this gardening/landscaping business. Well I wouldn't say that I am bad, it is mostly that I don't have confidence due to lack of knowledge. I am reading lots of websites, magazines, books trying to gather as much knowledge about planting a privacy "green" screen in our back yard. It sounds fairly easy, right? On some properties I am sure that is true. But mine is a slope, filled with rocks and fairly neglected since we moved in. Though I prefer to call it "natural" and blending in with the woodsy surroundings, it definitely needs some TLC to become our private shady haven.
After meeting with a landscaper we both felt a bit more confident about our plans and decided to roll up our sleeves and start digging up rocks to make our retaining walls. We both agreed to go "gather up surface rocks for 30 minutes..." and ended up out there for 2.5 hours digging up huge rocks. It was actually kind of fun and felt rewarding see our rock pile growing. Both of us feeling more confident and eventually tired and hungry (break time!) I will try and remember to take pictures as we go. Wish us luck!
Boyfriend's rock pile with a few of my contributions. He is rock extracting machine! I wish this picture was closer to the pile.
This was my station. Cutting back the slope to put a retaining wall. Those two big rocks took me so long to wedge out. Boyfriend is much better at rocking extraction than I.Any gardeners or none that read landscaping/gardening blogs or websites they could share? I would appreciate it if so. Thanks!
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3 comments:
wow! lots of work ahead - i love rock walls - my neighbor is a brick mason and he has a lovely one (but they are actually pieces of slate stacked on top of one another)
are the rocks boulder like rather than flat? i wonder if you can just stack them or if you have to adhere them to eachother so they don't fall?
Yah, I love rock walls too.
The rocks come in all sorts of shapes. We are planning to use the boulders for the shrub line to hold back the dirt. Then pick out the nice flat sided rock to build the wall. I'm pretty sure we won't have to buy any rocks.
:)
My goodness, those rocks are HUGE! I find small rocks in my garden all the time, sometimes I think they grow there during the winter. But none as big as those.
Are you going to have a tiered hillside? Looks like a big job.
I have links to gardening blogs at my Windywillow blog.
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