gravel, part one

After having completed the three big garden beds in the back yard, I had a moment of thinking I was done with my winter project, until, as I mentioned last time, I looked to the left and realized that unless I made a patio (which had indeed been in my LONGTERM plan) I would be spending all summer moving stuff to mow under it.

21 January

By the 23rd, Allan and I had dug out the sod.  The edges would eventually be widened as I added gravel and, as always, changed my mind about the size.

23 January

Not much had changed by the 25th, as we spent a day at the old house getting more plant divisions and some rocks.  Indigenous rocks are scarce in my new garden.

25 January

While digging out the sod, we found a little vein of river rock, probably from gutter drainage of the old house that used to sit here (burned down on purpose in about 1979 to make room for the manufactured home).  The question was how much of the small river rock to salvage? It seemed a shame to just bury it.  The most precious find was some broken  china from lovely blue and white dishes.

little round rocks waiting to be rinsed

spikes...railroad?

dish pieces

30 January

30 January saw the contruction of  a sort of gravel shelf (above photo, left) at the back of the patio, edged with assorted rubble which we had collected from a contractor friend and from the old house.  This took care of the drop in grade from the house to the edge of patio, and made an area for big plant containers and the garden hose.

On the west side of the house, in the nook created by the house wall and the back of the attached garage, a great big mess of bamboo canes, buckets, rubble and garbage can had accumulated and needed to be sorted, which created an excellent project to postpone the graveling!  By now, Allan had gone in Seattle for a week, and there is nothing like puttering and deciding where to put things without a second (possibly differing) opinion!

31 January, outdoor work/storage area

Once that area was sorted, I had no excuse to not move gravel, which was still lurking on the driveway like a humpbacked beast, having been delivered on the 28th.

gravel, eleven yards

I was hoping to get the whole patio made before Allan came home.  Procrastination and puttering was not getting the job done. But I had made a couple of patio features with old pipe bits, some from the old garden and some found around the new property.

patio features

While in Seattle, Allan did some shopping for me at Emerald City Gardens, putting owner Jay on the phone so I could do some long distance plant selection.

Jay talking to me on the phone

new plants on Emerald City counter

1 February

Now completely lacking in excuses to procrastinate (Could I have been somewhat out of steam after all the garden bed creation??), I started to move the rest of the gravel.

By the 2nd, Allan had come home…and there was still plenty of gravel to move. Oh dear.  But with two of us, it was quickly finished.  Since we usually go back to work on the 1st of February, I’d be glad that there were two of us to complete the work area and the gravel edges.  Our friend Ed stopped by and was the first to sit on the new patio.

first sitter on new patio

You can see our roller to the right….There is little in life more enjoyable and satisfying than running a heavy water-filled roller over newly laid gravel…is there?