Garden Project : Day 3+

It has been a very rainy November. When I talked to my landscaper last week, he said he was surprised by how suddenly the weather has changed to rain. I don't know if we've had any full 24hr without rain since that first week of November, which had a few dry days.

My landscaper came last Thursday and did a bit of digging out of the pathway. I would have dug it out a bit deeper, but then again maybe it's a good thing he did what seemed to me a poor job, since in my experience, if you dig in that area, then it starts to fill with water (the area slopes lower than the drainage pipe across the top, so the water will take the lower route if it can), and then it's not a good situation.

So instead, if he fills with gravel & sand, and then places the stones above, I will ask him to bring in a load of soil, and raise the beds around the path. That will anyhow be a good idea on the side which was lawn, since there was probably only 3" or so of soil there on top of the clay. And the center of the path should be raised since I am planning for some lilacs there, and from what I read, they prefer a raised bed, for better drainage.

Here are some photos at the end of Day 3 :


Today counts as Day 3+, since he had the flagstone and the granite bench (I hope!) delivered in a pallet onto the driveway this afternoon. I was very happy to see it when I arrived home from work.

So it feels like a little bit of progress, anyhow. Although with less than 6 weeks until Christmas, and no sign of an end to the wet weather, I am really hoping it can be done before Winter sets in.

I made some progress on the lighting. I decided against a lamp post. I think the light will be disproportionately bright for that small area, and I didn't see any I really liked the look of. Instead, I will go only with a low voltage system - some lights along the path, maybe some uplights into trees or downlights from trees. So this can be put in after the fact, like in the Spring. No need to set them out just to be abused by the weather all Winter. Since I'm not likely to be sitting out there this Winter - or at least not in the evenings.