All Over but the Mulching!

Sunday, Mulch Boy and I did it. We finished the dry creek bed. We used every single rock of the 5.5 tons of rocks we bought. It was exactly enough. Not a single rock is left. 

I was very very careful to not twist and turn and re-injure my back while moving and placing the last of the 5 - 8 inch river stones to edge the stream. But Mulch did all the heavy lifting for the project: literally by moving and placing the little boulders, and figuratively by chopping up all the clay clods, moving dirt, and leveling the soil in the new beds created by the dirt displaced by the trench-digging.

These beds were never part of the original plan; we just didn't anticipate them, absorbed as we were with the idea of the creek bed itself (and ROCKS). But when MB dug out the trench along the side of the house, suddenly we saw that part of the yard divided into several discreet areas that begged to become beds.

Saturday we made a trip to the local garden center to buy a couple of ferns and a new heather to begin the planting with. We forgot the heather, but came home with the two ferns... and 24 other plants.

I suppose it was wishful thinking that the organized, thoughtful planning we've put to use up to now on this project would survive the garden center visit. I don't think I've ever managed to use restraint or anything but the barest minimum of common sense when it comes to buying plants. No, it's mostly about love at first site and impulse buying. This time I did choose plants specifically to go in our new beds or (in the case of a handful) to go in a specific location in The Big Bed out front: there is a plan.  It's just the volume that got a little out of control.

Although in my defense, we didn't buy too many; I got most of our new friends in the ground, and there's a lot of exposed earth left for them to grow into. You are welcome to laugh at my planting: it's pretty random. I buy the plants I love without real thought about how I'll arrange them in the garden, so you designers out there will probably get a giggle out my "design." Mulch and I, though, are so impressed with ourselves that we keep sneaking out back to gaze rapturously at our handiwork.

This post shows the original "before" and midway "after" pictures.

And now, the all-over-but-the mulching pictures!

The "source" of the creek.

In front of the porch, the ground leveled by MB.

Same place, looking the other way.

Turning the corner...  Look, it's ferns and spurge!

I just want to sit in a chair and look at this all day.

We had no idear the rocks were this beautiful until I got the hose out to
water the plants. WOW! The tourists are already sailing up the creek to see!

Sedum, sedum, sedum, sedum, sedum, sedum, sedum, and a super-cool
bronze-colored ornamental grass.

 

My sedum fetish is a companion to my rock fetish.