Yard Improvements

Things have been busy in the backyard lately. With the latest - and last! - big remodeling mess about to commence (stay tuned), I had to move a large pile of concrete out of the corner beside the house. You may recall it as the chipmunk habitat where Maisie spent endless hours, obsessed and snuffling. It's what remains of the old front driveway, with the rest serving as borders for various garden beds. Plenty heavy, all of it. The largest blocks are now stacked in neat piles at the perimeter of the yard, out of the way but nearby in preparation for patio construction sometime soon.

Meanwhile, I used the medium-sized blocks to rebuild the border of the largest bed in a much more organized double-row fashion.

You may also recall how much Maisie loves to lounge in the dirt of that same bed.
For a long time I was baffled about how to use her half of the bed productively and make it look nicer without entirely depriving her of a great pleasure. I think I found a solution. See the Maisie-containment fencing?
She is welcome to dig and lounge inside the keyhole-shaped enclosure. Meanwhile, I planted onions, potatoes, and garbanzo beans in the rest of the space and am hoping they'll fill in quickly, leaving Maisie's mess hidden from most angles.

Then, remember the bed in progress alongside the house? After digging out cartloads of rocks and planting some shade-loving species (ferns, foamflower, celandine poppy), it's done! A big improvement.The bed beside the garage is also getting filled in as I keep moving plants into it from other places. And the window box is up at last (thanks, Dad!):This week's project finishes off another side of the yard. I hauled three sheets of lattice home from Menards on the roof of my car and built a structure in three sections. Then I used the post-hole digger that I still happened to have on loan from my parents to excavate six deep holes, then four more when the first batch didn't line up despite many careful measurements. After much fine-tuning of hole depth and placement of the various sections, and then some fancy footwork while wedged into the small space behind the lattice trying to maneuver a power drill, I screwed it all together with help from my neighbor Andy and my housemate Emily to hold it in place. Three evenings of work later, ta da! The pressing motivation to complete this project was to have a trellis for the trumpet vine to climb. I'd bought the vine back in May at the native plant sale, and it really needed to get out of its pot and into the ground. (It's now situated in the taller center section, although it's hard to spot in the photo.) But the longer-term goal was to add a bit of privacy to the yard and screen out a neighbor's bright red pickup and work trailer emblazoned with the name of his construction business that's almost always parked two doors down. At least from certain angles, this "billboard" is now much less visible.

With all these things done, you'd think my list of yard projects would be shrinking, wouldn't you? Somehow I still have lots of plans. . . but I also plan to find time to relax in the shade of the three enormous red oaks (and the elm and the white pine) in the yard's best spot.
It stays deliciously cool here, even in the steamy temperatures we've had lately. From the chairs, you look out at the lattice. From the hammock, you look up into the leaves. And from the photo, you could almost believe there's grass in the yard. Don't be fooled. But do come on in and sit for a while!