Mulch Extravaganza

When we left the front flower bed in June it looked something like this...

It was a pain to mow the lawn around all of the partial bed areas so Andy and I decided that we were going to order the rest of the mulch we needed to finish the bed.  We've had some extremely hot weather so we figured it was a good time to get the mulch in place now and then come back and plant some more in the late summer and fall.  We went to Home Depot and placed an order for 250 BAGS of mulch to be delivered to the house.  No more 20 bags at a time in the back of the car!

The mulch was delivered on a flatbed tractor trailer and the the delivery man brought all 4 pallets into the yard and placed them in areas where we needed to mulch.

THAT'S A TON OF MULCH! It sat in our yard overnight and I'm sure that our neighbors just drove by and laughed at us.

SD came down the next morning and we got to work. 

Step 1: A layer of old newspapers.

Step 2: Wet the papers to weight them down.

Step 3: A layer of leaf mulch from the compost pile.  (NOTE TO ANDY: avoid bees' nests!  He managed to disturb one and got stung 4 times! In some less than desirable locations)

Step 4: MULCH!

And we had a few obstacles to work around like another bees' nest in the yard that the wasp and hornet spray failed to kill the night before.

A dog that "helped" for about an hour.

And an interesting moth.

But we continued on after lunch.  More newspaper, bags, or even cardboard, leaves, and mulch.

It was hot and sweaty.

But we finally got it done and we only had about 15 extra bags leftover. Now it's easier to mow around and ready for more plants when the weather cools down.

 

Connecting the Dots

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!).

Fall Yard Work

 Over the summer and into the fall we continued to work on planting the new flower beds out front.  We planted some variegated hydrangeas near the blue spruce.

And the painted ferns that we planted earlier in the summer started to rally and convince us that we didn't really kill them.

We transplanted what we think is a native rhododendron from out back that was overgrown and buried in the shade.  It survived the trim and move very well.

And it changes to a deep purpley color in the fall.

This a perennial geranium that we planted closer to the street and along what will become a walkway from the mailbox to the house.

While Andy finished up the leaf clean-up I mulched the new beds.  Slowly all of the little pieces are starting to come together and eventually all of these beds will be combined into one.  Yeah for less grass to mow!