At the start of spring our front yard looked like this. A few large trees, a few landscaping beds near the street that we have enlarged significantly over the last two years and two new beds toward the house. The ultimate goal is connect all of these in one large bed with a path from close to the house to the mailbox. In order to plant more beds and finish the mulch we need to locate and build the path so that we can connect all of the dots.
Late last week, in the pouring rain, we had 5 tons of 3/4" Delaware River Jack delivered to the house. This will be the foundation of the path with flagstone stepping stones.
My parents came down on Sunday to help with the path and plantings. We marked the path with paint and then mowed the grass as low as the mower would allow, then we placed some landscape fabric (leftover from a retaining wall project at the shore -- thanks, SD!) and tucked some newspaper underneath to kill the grass under the new mulch areas.
My dad and Andy transported over 7000 lbs of stone via wheelbarrow and started placing the stone on top of the fabric.
We already had the flagstone pavers. They created a straight path that cut right through the middle of the backyard...
And a path to nowhere around a bed of pachysandra. I was happy to get rid of both paths although now we need to plant some more grass in the backyard before the weeds start invading.
We pulled up all of the pavers and carried what we needed around to the front.
We test-walked a few sections to make sure the spacing was correct and then set all of the stepping stones. The one closest to the curb required some measuring and cutting to make sure it was parallel to the curb.
We were all exhausted by the time the path was finished. I figure that between all of the stone, mulch and pavers we hauled over 8,000 lbs of material on Sunday (or 2 average size cars!). We still had a few plants that wouldn't survive if left unplanted. We got all of the Hypericum plants in before my parents left for the day and then Andy and I planted a few more things before it got dark and we crashed for the evening.
We love the new path and are excited to fill in the rest of the bed. Thanks Mom and Dad for all of your help (and free plants too!).
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