Each Little World

The Driveway Project: Update No. 2

This week began with more rain: the fourth wet Monday in a row. Last Monday, July 6, the rain turned the driveway into the mucky mess seen below. Mark and Matt gave up in disgust.

The next day, however, Matt brought in a couple of landscaper friends and the three of them, along with Mark, made great progress — despite the wet conditions.

First Matt put tubing from one side of the driveway to the other so if we ever want to add outdoor lighting, there is a way to get the wires to the other side without having to remove the pavers. 

While he worked on that project, the guys pulled out and took away all of the remaining driveway concrete. Then they started to dig out the mud and bring in gravel. Three loads of clay soil went out and three loads of gravel came in. The gravel was spread out by hand, using little blue "Guido" and with large equipment. Check it out!

By the end of the week the driveway had gone from this . . .

to this! Suddenly it's all coming together. (You wet down the gravel before compacting each successive layer.)

To follow all the stages of this project, click on Driveway Project in the categories list.

Another rainy Monday

It's warm, humid, windy and getting darker by the minute. Rain is clearly on the way. The gardener in me is happy at the prospect of rain. We have a tour of our garden scheduled for late August and some July rain would be a big help in keeping things looking good. I already have a pair of hoses hooked together to reach all the plants that are in the holding beds. Plus a peony, eight big Hostas and a clump of Eupatorium 'Chocolate' that got dug up when Matt was setting boulders last week. That's about as much watering as I want to do.

To be honest, however, I must admit that the homeowner in me does not want rain as Matt and Mark are out in the driveway digging down — excavating by hand — as they start to remove more soil in preparation for laying the gravel base for the pavers.

Matt's four-wheel drive, articulated front end loader is Italian and referred to as "Guido."

This is what Matt was using this morning to move the dirt he and Mark were digging out.

It took the better part of a week for the muck to dry out after last Monday's rain. So part of me really did not want more rain to slow down the project. But the sky kept getting darker as they worked. (My Traffic Island garden glows in this low light).

Weather Bug tells the story.

As soon as the rain began to fall the guys realized it was going to pour off the roof into the trench they'd just dug as Mark had removed the gutters to make it easier to work.

So they quickly put together a "Rube Goldberg" contraption to funnel the water away from the house. Back to a mucky driveway and work temporarily put on hold.

The Driveway Project: Update No. 1

We began our driveway rock garden project on Friday, June 19th with the arrival of the giant Caterpillar earth (and rock) mover. That was followed by the first load of boulders. Work officially began on Monday with no break last weekend. Over the eight days our builder Matt, and my husband Mark, have been working we've had rain on five days — almost two inches total. Here's what's happened since I last posted.

DAY 4 (Thurs. June 25): View from the garage, loading excavated concrete and soil

Matt compacting soil for the first step leading up into the front garden

Placing the second step 

DAY 5 (Fri. June 26): Setting boulders alongside the steps

Team work (Matt on the left and Mark on the right)

More step material

Measuring for a cut

So far, so good

Rain delay

A little off the sides

DAY 6 (Sat. June 27): Moving the Big Boy who weighed around 9 tons (8.16466266 metric tonnes)

DAY 7 (Sun. June 28):Nearing the summit

DAY 8 (Mon. June 29): Squaring it up (this stone will sit at ground level at our front door)

The last of the concrete

Last load of the day

Rainy days and Monday

The summer we put in our pond was very, very rainy. It felt like we were dealing with a sink hole that kept filling up with water. Thus I was able to take it more in stride when it started raining Monday morning during our first day of construction on our driveway project. 

But before it began to rain Matt first moved the boulders out of the way so he could maneuver the CAT. Then he began to break up the section of the driveway closest to the house.

He piled some of the boulders up on the bank.

He pulled out the remains of our Doublefile Viburnum that we planted in 1998. It took a hit in the bad winter of 2013/14 and never recovered. Then he started scooping out some of the dirt where the first big boulders will go.

Debris was carted away by a local dump truck company. Amazing enough that turned out to be Ken Haugen who dug our pond back in 1997. Ken is a consummately skilled craftsman and watching him operate the track hoe on that job was an education. 

Then it rained. 

It was a morning that required a lot of patience and concentration. 

 

Look what's in our driveway

Last Friday morning a piece of equipment even bigger than the one that dug our pond arrived. Nothing like seeing something like this pull up on your quiet tree-lined street.

It trundled off the flatbed delivery vehicle and into the driveway under Mark's watchful eye. (No, that's the driver. Mark was standing well out of the way).

This photo, looking toward the exposed two story section of our house gives you a sense of scale.

The "CAT" spent the weekend  right in front of our entrance door. 

But first our garden builder, Matt Wieneke, used it to pull out the stump and root ball of a 60-year-old yew shrub that hung over the front entrance.

This is the general area where we will add stone steps up into the garden. This should also make our front door more visible.

Matt took away all the branches that Mark had clipped as he cut the yew down to a stump. And he told us to expect the first load of boulders on Saturday.

Before he left, Matt put up a sign advertising his work.

He dropped off some of those "snakes" to help with erosion control on construction projects.

And he painted a bright pink asterisk to mark the spot where the truck is supposed to dump the rocks. The driveway is also sporting new cracks from the weight of the CAT.

The rocks arrive!

Though it was not immediately obvious, the arrival of the rocks was just as mind-boggling as the arrival of the CAT.

Ready for construction to start!

The final frontier: the driveway borders

Though we created a unified design for our entire garden before any actual work began, we constructed it from the back lot line out to the front. Now we're about to begin the last major construction project — one that Mark can't do on his own with a little help from me.

We're having an informal rock wall built into the sloping side of the driveway with stone steps leading up into the main front garden. This images shows the front end of the slope out toward the street.

This image shows the higher end of the slope which is closest to the house. (This view with the pile of stones is from our path project in 2009.)

Once the wall is finished it will be followed by the construction of a new driveway made of paving bricks. 

But before construction could begin we needed to dig out any plants that I wanted to save from the long border on the opposite side of the driveway. 

Landscaper Matt Wieneke, who's doing the work for us, suggested it would be safest to remove the first two feet of plants the entire length of the driveway which is easily 60 feet long (18.288 meters).

Mark put up a string line so I could clearly see what had to go. I dug out quite a few plants but he helped me with the big swath of Epimedium rubrum which was a solid block of roots. 

The next step was to put all these plants into temporary holding beds — not something most of us gardeners tend to have. Luckily we had already made the decision to redo the moss bed under the apple trees this summer so it seemed like the perfect spot to create holding beds.

Mark had already taken down the dying apple tree. Now he put down rows of newspapers held in place with bricks. Then he piled on commercial topsoil. We began with two planting rows.

Many of the plants, like Allium senescent 'Glauccum', tended to break into lots of pieces when I dug them out. Thus it didn't take long to see that we had enough plants to fill twice that space. So Mark created two more planting rows and I started putting the transplants closer together. 

The beds have Alliums, Epimediums, Hostas, Carex, Heucheras and more. I topped them off with a bag of Locust leaves I raked up last fall. I figured the slightest rain would wash the dirt away otherwise.

We ended up with five rows of plants. We dug out the last few things just before the big equipment got delivered last Friday morning. The first delivery of boulders arrived on the weekend. Can't wait for the work to begin!

Goodbye old friend

Our garden has a pair of full size Macintosh apple trees that were planted when our house was built in 1954. Unfortunately they were never pruned in the early days to control their shape. So they've grown splayed open with the crotch of the trees collecting water and weakening them. The photo below is from 2010.

The tree in the foreground in the picture above was down to its last limb when we finally cut it down this week. The picture below shows the stump more or less even with the ground and the last chunk of the trunk. The dark spots are rotted sections with openings of various sizes.

The apple trees presided over my original moss garden. When we were initially creating the garden I could not do any planting for the first few years as we created the hardscaping and paths. So I pulled out the grass under these trees exposing the moss growing there. It was a relaxing project and for a long time I enjoyed weeding this area. But now there are too many other chores and this has become a labor intensive area with not enough visual reward for the energy required to maintain it.

After taking down the one apple tree Mark pruned the other to take some weight off the limbs and allow more light through. This area is about to become a temporary holding bed while we do our last big front garden project: replacing the driveway and turning the slope up to the garden into an informal rock garden complete with stone steps. Before the work begins mid-month, I need to remove two feet of plants the length of the driveway border. Thus this area under the apple tree will handle those plants until the project is finished and they can return home. 

Then we will redesign the apple tree garden. No clear plan at the moment — other than incorporating the 15 solid green Hakonechloa plants I bought a few weeks ago. They are currently living in pots on the deck.

Winter interest in the Midwest

The current cold and snowy weather has garden bloggers ranting and raving about "winter interest" in the garden. Elizabeth Licata, a Buffalo gal like me, says it's a myth. Evelyn Hadden, who left Minnesota for warmer climes, says we just need to get out into the winter garden to love it. Beth, an Iowan who blogs at Garden Fancy, looked at the books on the subject and the realities of cold weather for those of us who garden in the Upper Midwest. As she says, where we live the cold can kill you! 

Readers of this blog know that Mark and I moved to this property specifically to creat a garden. We spent a lot of time looking out the windows the first winters we lived in our house, well aware that we'd be seeing snow for a good part of each year. We looked forward to an annual break from garden work but we didn't plan to turn our backs to the garden in winter. Certainly not given the expanse of glass that brings the outdoors into our house.

We read all the books that Beth mentions on her blog, like "The Garden in Winter" by the late Rosemary Verey, and a number of others. Currently I own seven books on the subject. They all had something valuable to say and we listened. Here's our take on winter interest.

We added art to the garden that would be visible even in deep snow, including this lantern and a sculpture of Buddha that sits on the deck. We also added a number of very large rocks.

We emphasized the sloping terrain in our garden with steps and walls and berms to give us a more dynamic scene.

We were lucky to have some big evergreen trees on site but we added lots more: Pines, Spruces, Yews, Arborvita, boxwoods to name a few. They offer a variety of colors, textures, forms — and size. 

These apple branches mark the edge of paths in the summer and provide a graphic punch in winter.

Our deck furniture stays outdoors year round adding pattern and a bit of color. 

Fences, gates and sculpture all add drama. This view has always reminded me of the garden shadows cast by a fence in Rosemary Verey's book (Pg. 24 if you have a copy). 

This bell is too heavy to blow in the wind, but the smaller bells right outside our back door always alert us to the weather.

More sculptural drama in the front garden.

The grove of River Birch trees is in front of an evergreen hedge to highlight their pale color and peeling bark. Each tree was placed for viewing from inside the house. 

These weed trees make a mess with berries in the summer but their bare trunks are gorgeous at this time of year. 

The ivy looks great even though it's dead by now. I pull it down when the snow melts and let it start climbing again.

Every gardener knows about 'Autumn Joy' Sedum and grasses for winter interest. But my favorite is this Carex greyii which provides a touch of intergalactic glam.

When I realized we had planted trees that had persistent leaves, I was completely bummed. But after a few years I came to love their warm color and papery texture, so at odds with the season.

We did not think of Carolina Silverbell as a winter interest tree when we planted it. But it holds its seedpods which is a bonus. We just added a second one in a more visible location.

This is my lolipop lilac coated with ice and buried in snow right up to its crown. This is planted next to the driveway where we can enjoy it every season.

I am so in love with this view of the garden that I have a framed photograph of it. It's currently sitting out next to a picture of my sister's house in Vermont in winter. They both have white mats and white frames making them even more wintry. 

Beth in Iowa says that you should include winter interest in your garden under these conditions:

1. If you enjoy being outside in your winter
2. If you garden in zone 7 or higher

I haven't been outdoors in five days and I garden in Zone 5a, so clearly I don't meet her criteria. But I can't imagine how long and dreary and downright disastrous I would find winter without my garden to cheer me up.

This year I was able to walk in the garden in December and cut branches to bring indoors just like the Brits. Some years I've had snowdrops in February, though March is the month they usually appear; definitely not on the same schedule as English snowdrops!

I believe winter interest in a garden in the Midwest is not only possible, it's necessary. I want to look out the window and see something beautiful in January, February and March. It's the only way I'm going to make it through the snow season. Though I love my flowers, I guess I like pattern, structure and green even more.

The gardening year: A look back at 2014

2014 was an odd year for me. I always felt a bit "off," gardening and otherwise. It may have been because Mark's mom died just before Christmas 2013 and much of this year was spent dealing with her estate. At the same time we were experiencing the winter that would not end, stuck indoors watching both long-lived and new shrubs and trees die. But looking back, much was accomplished in the garden and there was still a wonderful profusion blooming as soon as Spring arrived. And we made it through another year intact and in generally good health.

January: Flowers from Maxine's memorial brightened the house in the depth of winter. 

February: I managed to keep Geraniums and orchids growing and blooming during the indoor season. Seeing this image reminds me that we sold this 19th C. Chinese chair at our garage sale last summer.

March: We had pros in to prune our massive Honey Locust tree before the garden got going for the season. Always a wonderful feeling to have a project like that done. Mark, however, had the unhappy job of removing most of the dead trees and shrubs that fell prey to the winter. You can see browned victims in this photo. You can read about them here.

April: At last Spring sprung with my double snowdrops outside the back door.

May: As the season progressed it was clear that the majority of perennials made it through the winter with no problems. 

June: While I reworked the main perennial beds after dead trees and shrubs were removed, Mark began a building program that went on most of the summer. His first project was this covered gate on the east side of the house leading to the garden work area. It's officially known as the East Gate and will eventually have an unmatched partner on the west side.

July: This year we hit the milestone of twenty years of living and gardening at this house. We celebrated with friends and Mark finished more of the interior carpentry on the Tea House. He's hoping to wrap up this project in 2015. 

August: The next step on the east side was re-working the dry stream that leads rain water down our sloping property to the street. We've always tried to solve these practical garden concerns with a design that maintains the look of the garden while doing its job. 

September: When we put in our pond 20 years ago, we lined it with a double layer of rubber. With a project this big and expensive Mark wasn't taking any chances. It has worked well until this past summer.  It appears to have a leak which allows water to collect between the two layers of rubber, creating what's  called a "whale" — a giant bubble covering much of the pond. He spent the late summer pumping the water out from between the layers and trying to figure out a cure. Jury is still out on this one!

October: Suddenly we're hitting an age — along with the garden — where maintenance is becoming an issue. As a first step we're replacing some perennials with shrubs, creating larger swaths of the best groundcovers and getting rid of features whose enjoyment is outweighed by the work they need. Case in point is the moss garden which will be replaced with evergreen shrubs a la Jacques Wirtz. As is our wont, we cut out big cardboard circles to help us decide how many shrubs we want and where they will go. 

November: Though we had plenty of cold and snow in November we still got lots done. We chopped and bundled up 11 bags of leaf mulch and collected an equal amount of white pine needles. Both will be put down in the spring: one to refresh the beds and the other for the paths. Mark also built a storage unit so we could keep our garden pots outdoors but protected in the winter.

December: Though I tend to assume December means snow, that isn't always the case. After two snowy winters, we had a big break this December: hardly any snow and pleasant temps. I can look out at the garden or even walk around it if I want; checking on how things are doing and making plans for Spring. All in all not a bad garden year and I am looking forward to seeing how all the new trees and shrubs do this coming year! 

Winter quarters

Every fall one of the biggest jobs in our garden is rounding up our collection of big ceramic pots and getting them out of harm's way for the winter. Some move into the house for a change of decor, some into the basement or garage. But it has always meant a lot of rearranging to make space for them just as we need to deal with other seasonal house and garden chores. This year they have a new, dedicated space all their own. 

When Mark built this new gate earlier this year, he cleared out the area between the end of the house, the fence and the gate to create an organized storage area. Not long ago, he surprised me with this sturdy wooden shelving unit designed to hold most of the garden pots. As long as they don't get water inside them that can crack them with the stress of freezing and thawing, they can stay outdoors. As added insurance they'll get a layer of plastic over them as well.

Across the path are a potting/work table, wheelbarrows and hoses. There are also 8 bags of chopped leaves and the same amount of bagged white pine needles all ready for Spring; one to mulch the beds and the other to refresh the paths.