Welcome to Mary and Gary's Garden History Part-1
We started out with a couple of deep shade beds with rock hard dirt and a silly little
arbor we had made from PVC pipe. Our land lord (yes, we rent) cut down TWO-HUGE cottonwood
trees. We requested they leave us 40 inch stumps to work with. Whatever we do, it's going
to be wheelchair accessible.
So we started hauling in railroad ties and began digging out the old grass the hard
way. Our friend Greg Dobesh began bringing us dirt by the truckloads. A lot of tilling
along with 6 to 8 inches of new dirt and we had brand new flower beds that we could actually
dig in. Can you say, full sun. We had to buy books to figure out what to plant.
We began to add vertical features along with pathways. We needed a lot of bricks.
We really needed some brick layers. How about a three level terrace hiding behind a retreat
wall. Yes, I think this is what I had in mind.
Can you guess what's next. An empty space to the left, a huge pile of rock to the
right. Wouldn't that stump make a good spot to build a waterfall? Start stacking that
rock. Let's hide our valves to run our drip irrigation while we're at it. Add some plants
and we have an awesome water feature.
I really think we are starting to figure out how to landscape. Here we add
a pathway, tear out a hedge and then... buy a streetlight off of ebay.
Let's wind up part-1 by putting up a little greenhouse in the backyard.
This project I might do differently if given the opportunity to have a
do-over.
