New Foundations, Lil' Front Garden

So pulling into our driveway on the first, we found that the carcass of our garage had been carried away during the workday (well, most of it, some being around the backyard).

And we now understood the sign we saw hooked onto our back door the day before.

We quickly decided to take their advice and have been using the front porch for the last week. Then, in the past week, the crappy old foundations for the garage were beefed up. One side was knocked down and wholesale replaced. The other two foundation walls were built up half a foot or so and all of them now have rebar to strengthen the bond.

Last in the backyard, the men have also started on the french drain.

Then, starting last weekend, being blocked from easy access to my backyard maintenance, I decided to finally start digging up the front yard. Last Sunday:

Just about the very first thing I did once the house was officially ours was clean up the grass and weeds in the front sidewalks and growing in the little hole for the street tree. But until last week I hadn't done anything except try to deeply water it once a week or so (we still don't have a front hose bib so I've had to drag the back hose around or use a bucket). But last week I finally got out there and saved the tree from it's ugly weedyness. I've put in all plants that I started from seed at the end of July, not even 2 months ago.

My pretty little lambs ears. They should spread out over the whole area eventually.

Then, Chamomile. It seems a bit of a sensitive plant, don't know if it will do well in the low water street planting but they've been bursting from their little 3" pots. And I love the way they smell! And Patrick will like the little white daisies.

The last bit of the planting, they're hard to see but there are two tiny little blue fescue clumps on this side. I think I'll move the one that's farther back over the the chamomile side soon - that's probably not enough room for two clumps of grass. There are also a bunch of Gazania but I've decided since they bloomed about two weeks ago, that I don't really like them. They were listed as an annual though so I put them in anyway as by next year the lambs ears will have taken them over.

Anyway, this weekend we started digging up the front "lawn." You've seen it before in pictures like this.

Now we have this!

It looks teeny and insignificant BUT we spent hours and hours getting all the grass out of those two beds and out from under the concrete. We had to pick out all the roots you see below until the place was clean. It certainly wasn't quick, but I don't want to get this horrible grass growing up through our mulch and into my lil' baby plants.

But isn't it pretty for all of it.

It's mostly symmetrical, for this part. After the rocks, each side will be different.

See our new pretty little Cuphea and Yellow Lantana.

My Catmint from Seed.

More Blue Fescue. Just another two or so small pots of it that still need to find ground.

And Lavender Lady. It's supposed to bloom 3 months from seed but I guess in a month it will be too cold for it to flower, so next year.

Sadly, that's all we had time to get done this weekend but at least the change is quite dramatic. We have more than half a dozen more plants we wanted to get to but they will have to wait til next week I guess.

Surprises

Came home to see some quite unexpected things for the past two days in a row. First we find that our porch is finished. Yaaaay!

Although, I'm sure you can see, I forgot to take pictures yesterday. But two days ago, we came home to this and were very happy too. The only thing left will be the staining and priming. So... actually I guess we aren't really done but whatever.

We saw the boards on the porch platform as we pulled in front of our house, still on the street, but then when we got up the driveway, we saw our garage had been struck too! See the progress made in the last two days:

Now look closely, they removed all the roofing material. And you can see below, the siding on the back of the garage was completely gone too... or well, on the ground around the yard. But I didn't see piles and piles of roofing material so that made me happy. At least they disposed of some things. Not like last time...

The piles were bigger when we got home yesterday though. BUT the big difference this time is that I know they're reusing the siding - most of the siding - after they re-frame the garage.

And of course, the garage was storing some of the debris now around the yard. Apparently they put all our gardening stuff under the house and porch for safekeeping - except for the mower and chipper which may be too big for the door. We'll have to try and get those inside though... don't want the mower to go missing. The chipper turned out to be pretty crappy so that's okay.

As if these surprises weren't enough to make us happy, they also did this!

From an ugly cracked patio

To lots of grey rubble! Isn't it wonderful. Well, not easy to walk on anymore but great progress.

Isn't it funny how the lines of grass that were in the cracks of the patio are still there now that the concrete is gone.

Also, you can see in the picture above that these guys don't understand how to transplant something. The hole they dug around the rose there would have made me really mad... if I had in any way meant to save it. Luckily, there had been two roses in front of the garage and the one that I thought was healthiest I decided to remove in preparation of their work on the garage. The other one I cut all the way down and figured they wouldn't care about it. For some reason they thought that I had wanted to save the nub though, and had attempted to dig it out.... I have no idea what they were thinking, where would they have put it? but in any case, they seemed to have given up on it.

Anyway, in case there is any doubt as to why we have to have the garage rebuilt from scratch, here is an average picture of on of the timbers holding up the current shell.

The Grand Design

I've talked about it in pretty much all of the posts I've made before about the garden, but I haven't ever posted a picture of the design I'm seeing in my head. So today, I'm letting everyone in on the secret.

(BTW, I drew the outline based on the Google earth screenshot of my house, it's a little wonky but it's the right proportions)

It's a big picture, it's crowded with all kinds of little notes and circles. And then, it isn't fully complete either. In the backyard I'll have tons of two foot and smaller plants, most of which I didn't draw in. Even so, I look at and love it. I can't wait until we can finally take that first big trip to the nursery and start filling in the landscape. Sadly and happily, the contractors will soon be starting on the garage so we won't be able to do anything in the back for a while. But in the meantime, we'll start on the front, maybe this weekend! The only obstruction that will likely be there is the port-a-pottie... right where I want to plant a tree, sigh. It won't be much longer though, maybe a month and a half more of construction to get through and it'll all be done. By then, the rain will have started and it will be a great time for planting.

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A Short Postscript

I know I only just posted a minute ago but having posted, I looked down at my previous one and thought it made me look like I kinda don't know anything about pruning.... heh. I had posted this picture of my newly dwarfed Hibiscus.

But while I still haven't found the time to get out my pruning saw and clean it up, you have to see the disgusting plant I was dealing with. (Why did I forget to take before pictures!)

Now that is a nightmare created by bad pruning. Also, possibly termites because I found some oddly light branches - over an inch thick but weighing less than a small newspaper. So that first picture is the result of a long hour going through that bush and carting away the bits. I'm quite decided now that I'll cut the old branches farther down but I'm going to wait until it has a few more leaves. When I stopped before, I was pretty much thinking that I didn't want to completely defoliate it (and I was so tired).