In Which the Front Walkway Went from Bad to Beautiful

If you haven't seen the 'before' photos of our front walkway then you should take a peek at this post first and then hop back over here to read what we did about it and how.

In preparation for building our walkway I had been drawing up plans in my little notebook and had been checking out the hardware stores to see what supplies we needed. I knew we didn't want to have to use a wet saw to cut any bricks so my design had to involve rectangles the size of the bricks we chose.  I watched this video, which really helped me understand what needed to be done (actually I can't find the one I watched, but I know it was on This Old House).
The first thing I had to do was transplant the bush that was in the middle of the lawn.  Then I dug the whole area down five inches, at which point the project ground to a halt and lay dormant for about six weeks.  Yep we all had to walk on boards and trudge through mud and dirt to get to the front door - fun eh?  
With fall already here and winter fast approaching I decided I needed to take drastic action.  So I called in the troops - aka my husband, my sister, and my eldest son and his wife.  We all worked like crazy two weekends ago and got the job done.
Here's what we did.  
We had to level the ground and carefully edge it.  Then we cut and laid down the garden fabric to help block weeds from growing through the path.

Then we added limestone screenings.

Fifty-one bags of limestone screenings (and they were 30 kg each) - I couldn't even lift them so thankfully Malcolm was there to heave them around.

As you can see we put up wood to keep the limestone screenings in place while we tamped them down (although you may notice that one of the boards is out too far - oops, measuring error).  I think Christie and I are doing a fine job of supervising, don't you?

Once all the limestone screenings were level - and we used a long board and a level to scrape along the top to make sure everything was in order - then we put down the bricks.

The bricks we chose look like four individual bricks, but are actually joined together so it gets laid down faster. When the sand gets added on top it goes in the little grooves as well as in the real cracks between the blocks and it ends up looking like a pathway of individual bricks (I hope you followed that explanation).

On Sunday, Malcolm and I worked together to get a little more done.  We added the sand between the bricks which really helped it look more finished and we dug out more of the new garden along the right side of the path in the photo below and added new garden soil.

This was the trickiest area because we had to make a step down so the bottom area was level with the driveway.  As you can see there is still a lot to be done around the edges of the path.  That is as far as we got by Sunday evening.

On Wednesday Malcolm and Christie came back and finished off the list of things that needed to be done.  It mostly consisted of finishing digging out the new garden and adding garden soil to the new and the old garden beds, dividing some of the hostas and planting them in the new garden, and putting some sod along the edge of the lower walkway.  
Later in the week I added a few chrysanthemums and tidied the workplace up and stood back to admire our handiwork.

As it turned out it wasn't a project I really could have done on my own because the bags of limestone screenings were too heavy for me to lift.  While it took a lot of work and a surprising amount of figuring out and measuring it wasn't really too complicated so I would rate it as a moderately difficult DIY project.

All I can say is that I'm so happy it is done and I'm very proud of the work we did together.
Let's have one more look at the 'before'

and the 'after'.

Linked to Weekend Bloggy Reading at Serenity Now

Let's Consider our Front Walkway

Last weekend we completed a project that I have been working on since the beginning of July.  I haven't mentioned it on the blog because a part of me wondered if I would even succeed or if this would be an epic DIY fail and I would have to call in the pros.  This project took ages to complete and ended up being fairly involved.  Yes folks this could be the world's slowest front walkway project.  
Let's start with some 'before' photos.  Welcome to our home.  We always have lots of pots of flowers on our front porch along with a few pieces of furniture so that it looks welcoming   It doesn't look too bad, does it?  

  

Well wait until we step back a bit. Then you can see the narrow pathway made of cement pavers that was being taken over by the garden, the bush (on the left) that I planted in the wrong spot so it blocked the view of the flowers on the porch, and the awkward step arrangement.

As you get closer to the house you can see more problems - there is a gap all along the bottom edge of the stairs.  Why is there a gap there?  This is one of life's bigger mysteries.  I have spent more time than I care to think trying to block up that crack and stop stones and sand from disappearing under the stairs.

Speaking of under the stairs - did you know that a skunk once decided that would make a nice home.  We tried to block it from living there, by putting rocks and chicken wire at the corner.  The rocks and chicken wire did not deter the skunk at all - he just burrowed further and further out each night.  We eventually got rid of him by sprinkling cayenne pepper on the lawn.  

The rocks remained at the corner of our porch stairs though.

And we couldn't use the railing down the porch stairs because there wasn't a pathway at the bottom.  It didn't matter very much in the summer, but in the winter when there is ice and snow around it is nice to be able to hang onto something solid.

So like any normal person I decided to take this on as a DIY project.  Yes in the middle of one of the hottest summer's on record I dug our front yard down the five inches needed to make a walkway.  And our soil is rock. hard. clay!!! (that totally needs three exclamation marks as our clay is ridiculously hard).  Yay, GO ME!
I dug an hour a day first thing every morning and by the end of July I had it all dug out.  Then August came and it was a whirlwind of activities so I didn't get anything done.  Then I was away in Nova Scotia and then at our friend's farm and then in Winnipeg ... and then I started to panic that winter was coming and we were going to have a skating rink right outside our front door.  
So I called in the troops.  I emailed my sister and Malcolm and Christie to see if they could come and help us.  Two weekends ago we all worked together and got the job done. It looks fantastic - I'll show you what we did in a post tomorrow.

WISH Wednesday #45

I fell in love with this patio and had to share it (although I can't even remember where I got it from - bad blogger ... hanging head in shame).  I thought it would be perfect for a late summer WISH Wednesday photo.
I love the gorgeous stone building in the background. It looks French to me, especially with the pea gravel patio. Aren't the chairs painted such pretty shades of turquoise and teal - they are the perfect compliment to the rustic wood table.  I'm a sucker for simple table settings like the one shown here with jugs and vases filled with pink flowers, runners across the table, lanterns, and bowls of food.  I would love to have a quiet lunch here.

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And as always, here is the collage of all the August inspiration photos.  I see lots of cottage and outdoors photos along with plenty of soft blues and greens.  

7 Things I Learned from the Dundurn Castle Kitchen Garden

We visited Dundurn Castle in Hamilton, Ontario recently (which you can read about here) and one of the treasures is the kitchen garden. I learned a few things from touring the garden.  I probably would have learned even more if we had taken the guided tour, but the tour wasn't until the afternoon so I guided myself through the garden and here are the important things I learned:

1. Gardens look best when they are organized.  The garden at Dundurn Castle is surrounded by a tall wooden fence and then divided by pathways into rectangular sections.  Just inside the main gate is a round decorative garden and at the opposite end of the garden is a beautiful little garden shed, which leads me to the second thing I learned.

2.  Every garden should have an adorable garden shed.

3.  The interior of the garden shed will look amazing painted cobalt blue.

4.  And if said garden shed is filled with vintage gardening tools and mason jars to keep seeds in it will both look good and be useful.

5. Hanging beautiful braids of garlic from the rafters will add enormously to the atmosphere and will later add enormously to the tastiness of your cooking.

6.  Sticks and string make good frugal supports for growing bean plants.

7.  And a costumed guide helping with the gardening chores gives just the right touch - every garden should have one.

Anyone else truly, madly, deeply in love with that garden shed?  I thought I would see a bunch of hands waving in the air.  Yeah, me too.

Three Tips for Landscaping a New Subdivision Garden

It is hard to believe, but we have lived in our present house for ten years this July.  When we moved in, the backyard was empty - our own personal prairie grassland.  A dead bush that looked like a tumbleweed blew down our street one day so I put it in the backyard to help complete the look.  If we were going to have a prairie in our backyard then we should at least have a tumbleweed.

Our backyard (June 2011)

The spring after we moved in we bought a wooden climber from a friend.  The climber was a big hit and was used continuously for years. Sadly those days are gone, although the climber is still there hidden by the bushes and trees.  A couple of years after we got the climber another friend gave us their heavy-duty swing set, which originally had two children's swings on it, but now has our garden swing. 

Backyard in the same view as the first photo (spring 2002).  The wood in the back right corner is the soon to be climber.

Rear of the house (spring 2002).  Note the "tumbleweed"  against the fence on the left.

It seemed very daunting to create a beautiful, useful, fun space out of our bleak barren backyard.  How were we going to make an impact there without spending a fortune?  We needed some shade stat, but how were we going to accomplish that without bringing in mature trees.  I looked in my garden books and on-line for some advice and there was surprisingly little information out there about how to make a bare subdivision yard look nice as quickly as possible without spending a fortune.   

So these are some of the best tips I discovered and they were very helpful to me so I'm passing them along to anyone else faced with a bare backyard.

Tip #1 - Look at where your neighbours have trees and line yours up on the same side.  It seemed counterintuitive, because you would think you should spread the trees around, but what it does is give you a sight line of greenery and makes your yard seemer greener faster.  This is the view we have out our dining room garden doors so I love that it is a wall of greenery.

A swath of greenery created by planting trees and bushes on our side of the fence to fill out in front of our neighbour's tree.

The extra height gained by planting our garden under our neighbour's roses (which you can see above and growing through the fence) helps create a more mature looking garden.

Tip #2 - Plant some fast-growing trees and bushes as well as some long-term ones.  Bushes and trees like pussy willows are not usually featured in garden plans that you see in magazines and books, but they definitely serve a valuable place in a new garden.  You want  a mix of fast-growing and long-term plants so that you get some immediate shade, but in 20 years or so when the fast-growing plants are finished your long-term trees and bushes are ready to take over.  

The willow just past the swing has grown from a twig to a sizable bush in about eight years and casts a nice area of shade.

Tip # 3 - You want to make the garden beds wide enough and with nice gently curved edges so that they look interesting.   Even garden beds along a fence, unless you are making a really formal or modern garden, look better with some curves to them.   A great tip I read was to use a garden hose to mark the shape of the new garden beds.  The hose doesn't bend easily so will only create undulating beds with a nice gentle curve.  Lay the hose along the edge of where you envision your garden should be until you are satisfied with its shape and then cut the sod there.

Newly built flower beds (July 2003)

Back garden beds (June 2010)

We had one flower bed that was a rectangle about seven feet long and three feet wide.  This is not a good dimension for a garden as it rather looked like we had just buried someone back there.  We referred to if fondly as our coffin garden.  To fix this problem we widened the bed slightly and rounded one end incorporating a couple of bushes so there was some height making it more interesting and less graveyardish.   

By making the garden beds a minimum of three feet wide, but hopefully more like four or five feet, you create a space wide enough that you can plant bushes away from the fence.  Nothing looks worse in a few years to see mature bushes all misshapen because they were planted too close to the fence.  The wider garden beds also allow plants to be layered in front of one another to make a more interesting arrangement.

Anyone else have some tried and true garden tips for the new home gardeners out there?

Linked to Wow us Wednesday at Savvy Southern Style