Project 2: The front walkway, Part III

The walkway project has been unhappily neglected the last couple of months. Between finsihing the 1/2 bath (which we begun around the same time), and wrapping up other projects, and the generally cold/wet weather, we haven't made lots of progress. The bed is still being cleaned up, and we haven't really come up with tons of ideas for the space.

However, in order to make it look like we are planning on doing something at some point with the front yard, I decided that the mulch beds around the trees could be redone (the landscaping fabric was showing in places). Then, I was thinking of all the rocks that my mom has been trying to throw away the last, I don't know, several years. I asked her to select some for me, and last week I brought them home.

Friday afternoon I did this:



I love it! I know now that I want to do this for the other two trees, and may end up outlining whatever we do with the front bed, or the vegetable garden out back.

Below are pictures of a balloon that got caught in our tree a few weeks ago. It appeared after Valentine's Day, and disappeared between Friday afternoon and Sunday morning:

Project 2: The front walkway, Part II

This past week N has been ripping up the landscaping fabric from the front bed and raking dirt away from the front of the house. The soil in this bed is 5 or 6 inches higher than the grass, and near the pine tree it has built up at least 12 inches, maybe more. The most important part of this project, for the near future, was removing the soil that came too high on the front of the house. The soil in the front bed covered the foundation, and when we had the house inspected we were told to move the soil away so that the foundation could be seen. Raking away all that soil caused the pipes from the dismantled sprinkler system to become exposed in a few areas. N also ripped off the ivy that was growing up the house.



On Saturday we went out to buy a square-point shovel and a wheelbarrow/wagon to help us move the dirt from the front yard to the back yard. We have a giant live oak in our backyard, but the roots are completely exposed in some areas, and it could stand to be built up, if only to prevent tripping. We found both tools we needed at Walmart, and we also picked up some Ortho fire ant killer and a bottle of Round-up.

Once home we started shoveling piles of dirt from the front bed into the wagon, and then dumped the wagon contents in the backyard. N and I took turns removing the bricks that outline the bed and stacking them on the concrete foundation of a former shed in the backyard.



There's a pine tree in the front bed, and its roots have grown in between many of the bricks. Here's a picture of three bricks stuck together by a big root:



We treated the two fire ants piles in the front bed, and I sprayed the weeds that are growing in-between the sidewalk and driveway. After we were done moving dirt for the day, I raked out the dirt we dumped in the backyard.



Other yard-work things were completed this weekend as well. This coming Friday is a junk waste pick-up day for our neighborhood. We only get these every other month. We hauled out the vanity, and then stacked some of the former shelves from the garage, as well as the parts of the chimney that were torn off, and some of our broken down fence.



We treated another couple of fire ant colonies in the backyard, and pulled up these paved stones that were haphazardly placed in the backyard from the patio to nowhere.

And, for a bit of fun, we took the chance to douse the two stumps on the left side of the yard with gasoline and then built charcoal pyramids on each and set the whole on fire. The gasoline was left over from McVicker and we had been trying to get rid of it anyway. Our neighbor is the one who actually suggested it, which was good, since we didn't want to be setting fires on stumps and making them worry. I get the impression that they don't worry about a lot of things. We took precautions, such as wetting the ground around the stumps with water, and keeping a water-hose handy. Both fires burned for several hours. Next weekend we might try this again on the stump in the backyard.







There's still a lot of work to look forward to in the front yard. My long-term vision for the front yard is a paved area with a bench, so that the beautiful yupon that we've rescued can be appreciated. N would like to build a grill in the backyard out of the remaining bricks from the front bed, and perhaps recycle those silly stepping stones as well. A grill matching the herb spiral and the house sounds like a cool idea to me!

Our de-bricking tools:



Broken bricks:



Treated anthill:



While moving bricks N and I found a garden snake in the wagon:

Project 2: The front walkway

So, there are not many pictures of the front of the house (that I took) that don't include piles of storm debris. But the front bed by the walk has literally one decent plant - a weeping yupon (I believe). Other plants included a brutally mutilated crape myrtle and nine or ten huge bushes that prevented any sunlight from reaching the ground around them. A little bit of ivy seems to have survived and grown over the years, although I'm neutral about ivy.

Here's the house as it was when we bought it four months ago:



Here's the house after the removal of the offending bushes:




And another shot from further away:



The yupon will stay and new plants can be added in the coming spring. Now I'm just trying to kill what remains in the bed, remove the last of the bricks outlining the bed, and mulch areas, like around the pine tree, that need it. The whole front of the house is visible from the street, though, and I should have taken a picture of the bushes before removing them. McVicker had neglected to do any lawn work after June 2008, and when we bought the house this fall we were so busy with hurricane repair, moving in, and general fall craziness (Christmas, school, etc.) that we neglected yard work; the bushes were in need of some trimming, and cutting them off entirely wasn't much more work.