rock – Wellyssa's Womb

Ditch edging

We’ve been wanting to do this project for 10 years, but there has always been something more important going on, or a bigger project I was more invested in. Now that’s it’s finished, I can’t believe we waited this long, the difference is amazing. To be able to define the space at the bottom of the exterior berms from the edges of the drainage ditches surrounding the property makes such a difference.

As I laid out the 800 yards of hose, rope, electrical cord and whatever else I could find to set the straight lines so I could paint where the edge was going to go, I realized that what is visually equal or straight from the viewpoint of the berm, is NOT straight from the viewpoint of the road.

Sculpting around the curved edges of the noodle gardens

So I had to lay out the lines, according to what I thought looked good, or where the existing berm and mulched plantings ended, and then go stand on the street and take a look. Yikes! What a difference. I had to move the hoses, etc., to be in line with the edge of the straight line of the street, as viewed from the street, to get it to look good. This was really tedious, I had no idea it would be such a pain.

Looking from east at the front of the property to west end

Then we laid 24″ width’s of weed barrier, double layer next to the lines for the rocks to sit on. I’m NOT gong to pull grass out from between 800 yards of rock! 12″ of the fabric ran up the berm to be tucked under the mulch, and then smaller fill rocks were added around the larger edging rocks to fill the gaps and hide the fabric at the ditch side of the edging.

This project used 25 tons of 8-12″ granite rip-rap. I had the truck drop 1/2 the pile in the south materials area and the other 1/2 had to be dropped in the street in the culdesac on the north side, so we had to do that side first (I didn’t want my neighbors to have to be driving around my rock pile for months).

We extended the edging to the rear driveway and created a rocked area to connect the culvert to the driveway concrete and up the slope to the main edge of the edging, and from the culvert up the other side to the street edge.

I had a 25% off materials coupon from Ewing Irrigation and Landscaping, as a “good customer” reward. Ha! they had no idea what was coming. When I told the lady behind the counter I needed 25 tons of rip-rap AND I have a 25% off coupon, she had to call corporate to get an OK, but I got that OK! but I got my 25 tons for $525.00.

For this project I used labor from my friend Jester Martin, at http://nadurragardens.com/. He sent me over a laborer, Thomas, to do the heavy lifting and the tedious job of measuring, cutting and placing the weed barrier down. Thomas dug out the largest rocks from both piles and spaced them equally along the entire length of the fabric border on the north and south sides. Between laying the fabric and pulling out the big stones, this took 3 days. After that phase was complete, I and my friend Sherry (whom I also paid, but not as much as the guy from Nadurra) began to fill in the spaces between the largest rocks with the next biggest rocks, tucking in the smaller 4″ and 2″ rocks to make everything tight and to fill in the gaps.

(Yes, 2″rocks. I bought 8-12″ rip-rap and I had probably a full ton of 2-4″ pieces. I was really pissed! I actually had to go back to the yard and hand pull another 2 tons of rocks, 3 loads in my pick up, to finish the job, because at least 1/3 of the pile was undersized. They refused to offer me a refund or exchange or replacement. I will never buy materials from Ewing again.) Wish I had taken pics of the piles though – they were impressive!

Years ago, my now-moved-away-neighbor Roy, brought me this awesome snake head shaped rock and placed it at the end of the front/south rock berm. It’s about 3′ long and 18″ high and 24″ wide. I had a few large granite stones (18″ x 12″) in a pile in the back yard waiting for the right thing to do with them. So Sherry and I wrangled them up on the heavy duty hand cart and drug them one by one across the yard, out the back driveway, up the street to the east end of the property, down the ditch and then back up the other side and set them in place, one by one. We connected the rock berm to the head of the snake and then incorporated the head of the snake into the rock edging. We turned the snakes tail around in a bending pattern, propping the last stone up in the air like the tip of his tail.

We also had to drag over a few of the largest stones up out of the ditch around the drainage pipe that runs under street. These stones had to be dug up out of the ground where they had been sitting, and the rolled, flipping them over one side at a time, up the steep drainage pit that they were set into, and then towards the snake about 20′ away. People must have thought we were insane. We’d haul one stone, flipping it over and over, get it in place with sticks and crowbars and lots of grunting and then fall into the grass of the ditch and lay there panting and sweating for 10 minutes. Then we’d get up and go fetch the next rock. We got all 11 rocks in place in one 3 hours session.

Now we have a beautiful straight, decorative edge all the way around the property. Thank you Jester, Thomas, Sherry and me!

Another 25 tons of rock

The two front rock berms are finally done. There’s a total of 25 tons of black and red granite on each berm: 12.5 tons of large boulders, and approximately 12.5 tons of 6-12″ rip rap. Jester and I worked on these berms for an entire week. We set each stone so that you can walk on it and it will not move. When I’m weeding or tending the plants on the berms I can walk from rock to rock without worrying about it moving out from under my foot and possibly turning an ankle.

I bought a variety of dwarf evergreen shrubs and xeric roses to go on he berm, and snaked the irrigation lines down in between the rocks, out of sight. It took me 18 months, shopping at sales and getting lucky at the nursery to get all the shrubs I needed. The tree in front of the berm is a brilliant fushia crab apple. the catalpas that we planted (the most expensive trees we have purchased to date) died in this springs early freezing temps. I called the nursery where we purchased them and they said that 100’s of Catalpas had died that winter. Apparently they pulled their sap up into their branches during a warm spell in February, and then when it went down below free double digit temps, the sap froze and burst in their veins. So sad.

This isn’t the best picture, but take a look at how much the privet hedges have grown! they are about 24″ in this pic. And we put a rock edging in front of the lily bed too.

Noodle Gardens

I call them “noodle gardens” because I think they look like wet spaghetti noodles, kinda curvy, only surrounded by rock, not tomato sauce. Because I hate straight lines, I had our neighbor Roy, who delivered the dirt for us, shape the south berm into a curving form from east to west, pushing two sections into the property and leaving one section at the edge of the ditch. These two indentations were the result.

Taken from my neighbor’s driveway across the street

I knew that I wanted to plant trees there, and we planted the red maples in 2005, so far so good. But following that, I’ve been trying to decide what I wanted to do with the rest of the space.

I put down fabric and edged it with black granite, filled it with 1″ black granite, and then made a noodle shaped raised garden bed in the center, to be planted with bulbs. My thinking was two fold: 1) it’s one less expanse that I have to weed or spray, and 2) it continues the use of rock from the front around the sides.

First spring for the noodle garden – the daffodils are up and some of the early spring bulbs are popping out of the ground in the noodle garden! Yea!

Starting to look like something

Stinky, (the cat) enjoying the verbenas. After we put in this retaining wall last fall, I finally felt like this front porch bed could be finished. A few colorful annuals did the trick, oh, and a kitty.

Front porch garden: Dwarf Korean lilac in the back, Carol Mackie Daphne, and mixed verbena in front. The bright pop of yellow to the left/rear are the Maximilian sunflowers; they’re about 6 feet tall. And the little T fan shaped shrubs in the foreground are my little hedges; they greened up nicely after a heavy snow last winter, and they have their first branch sets on them. Fingers still crossed.

In the picture below, you can see the stone steps we put in to lead down from the front porch to the lower willow garden. Wish I had taken a better picture. Also in this

picture, you can see the front south rock berm, in the upper right corner. There is a berm like this on each side of the front of the property. Eventually they will be covered in stone. But for now, I was able to afford 25 tons of large boulders, 3-6 tons each boulder, to put on the berms. These boulders are the anchor stones for these two berms. I know, it looks weird right now, it looks undone – and it is. But these things take time, and money $$$.

On the north, front side of the property is the other large berm. I don’t think you can see the boulders from this view, but you can appreciate the second year’s growth of Aunt Judy’s daylilies. They’re right out front behind a row of pink mums. Appreciate them! They came all the way from Missouri and are working really hard in this nasty soil.

All in all, I feel good about this progress. It’s finally starting to look like something, at least out front.