(If you’d like to follow this project from the beginning you can start at Step 1 here)

Step 7 of Rear Garden Design Project.

July, 2002

We’ve read lots of books on building stone walls and steps so we are fully armed with knowledge on how to proceed with our latest step in the project. We dug below the soil line, filled and leveled the base with gravel poured onto landscape fabric. Great beginning.

We removed the temporary steps in preparation for the stone work. Note the pile of river rock piled against the back wall. We’ve begun dismantling the garden walls.

We found the largest stones from amidst the three tons of stone we had delivered and started to put down our first step. We measured the height and width of the area and determined the riser and run dimensions of the steps making sure that they would all equal. This is a safety issue.

My husband Dave quit stone work after we built the stairs and went back to computers.

At the end of our first day we were proud of having completed our first step. We used levels to make sure the stones were sloped correctly and concrete dust to stabilize each step.

So now that we had our first step the rest would be a cinch. Right?

No beauty pageant winner here. I’m far to exhausted to care. Stair 2 has been completed.

What we found is that we could only build one step a day. Sifting through the tons of stones, bringing them from the driveway using our handtruck. Shimmying them down to the base of the project and then lifting them into place. Absolutely exhausting work!

I didn’t even commit a crime and I’ve been sentenced to hard labor on the rock pile. I should have been naughty.

At the end of each day we took photos since we couldn’t believe how hard this project was for us physically. Oh, so you mean, working with computers all day doesn’t make you fit enough to haul huge stones? Who would have thought?

The steps are done and I’ll never, ever build another set. Yippee!

And so the day finally comes and we’ve finished the steps. We are still proud of them and thankful that we’ll never have to ever do something like that again in our entire lives!

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Go to Step 8 – Building The Flat Stone Wall

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(If you’d like to follow this project from the beginning you can start at Step 1 here)

Step 6 of Rear Garden Design Project.

June, 2002

River rock walls with temporary steps reclaimed from the basement

Sometimes you design a project and don’t foresee some of the unexpected pitfalls to your vision so you try to make it work. It is important to recognize when to change course and try another solution. This happened with my idea about using round river rock on the terraced stone walls.

I wanted to keep the materials for the walls somewhat aligned with the natural stone found on the property. I didn’t have enough of my own local stone to do all the walls for the entry and the dry streambed so I bought 3 bins of Pennsylvania River Rock to supplement what I already had.

Running out of rock. To the right is the temporary bridge over the dry stream bed

What I didn’t expect was that, even with landscape fabric behind the rocks, the soil was going to come through the walls and seep into the drainage system. We worried each time we had a major rainstorm that if the drains clogged the guest room would flood. This development was so unacceptable to us we zigged and zagged for an acceptable design solution.

We bought more stone as the solution to all our problems. Hmmm.

So what did we do? We bought more stone of course. This time it was flat stone, which we felt would be a tighter solution to the seeping soil problem. We’re on our way forward…again.

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Go to Step 7 – Building Our Stone Steps

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(If you’d like to follow this project from the beginning you can start at Step 1 here)

Step 5 of Rear Garden Design Project.

September 2000

If anyone had ever told me that I would be sentenced to hard labor on a rock pile I would have mocked them. Welcome to my life.

The garden rocks begin to accumulate in the dry stream bed from months of gardening

On the program, “Inside the Actor’s Studio“, James Lipton asks ten questions at the end of his interview with the guest artist. Two of those questions are:

• What profession other than your own would you like to attempt?
• What profession would you not like to do?

My answer to the second is instantly and consistently: Ditch Digger.
I then remember that I’m a gardener and I dig ditches and holes all the time.

Nobody could pay me enough to do this backbreaking work but I’m doing it in my own garden for free

I guess I would also have to include working hard labor on the rock pile under professions I would not like to do.

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Go to Step 6 – Stone Walled. Rethinking the Project

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(If you’d like to follow this project from the beginning you can start at Step 1 here)

Step 4 of Rear Garden Design Project.

June 2000

On June 19, 2000 I had three bins of Pennsylvania river rock delivered for me to use in building the walls of the terraced back entry. Though my property is rich with stone, (I do live along a road named Stony Hollow after all) I knew there wouldn’t be enough rock to complete the project as designed. The wire bins which contained the stone eventually became repurposed as my compost bins offering me many years of service.

Pennsylvania river rock delivered to the project site

The non-native river rock has a slightly different color than the native rock. It has a cooler shade of gray then the more earth toned local material. I was and am, somewhat bothered by this color shift.

Rocks dug from the garden help to define the dry stream bed

With each shovel dug into the ground over decades of gardening I’ve unearthed more and more stone treasures. I use these treasures to design and delineate my ideas, walkways and planting beds.

First hose and then rocks help to define the woodland walkways

I use garden hoses in the early stages of creating the curves. You can see the hose towards the right hand curve. This allows me to visualize the movement and width of the walkways from many perspectives without breaking my back. Once I feel somewhat satisfied, I then replace the hose with rocks. I have been known to move the rocks over and over as time helps me to consider and reconsider the flow of plants and the land.

It is so creative to plan a garden so what’s a little pain!

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Go to Step 5 – Hard Labor on the Rock Pile

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(If you’d like to follow this project from the beginning you can start at Step 1 here)

Step 3 of Rear Garden Design Project.

April, 2000

After we scooped out the soil for the creation of a back entrance to our home certain considerations needed to be addressed. The water and gas lines running to our home needed to be lowered to a new appropriate frost depth. The John Borrelli Plumbing Company brought in heavy equipment and reinstalled all our lines after the town located the entry points of our utilities.

Borelli Plumbing putting in the new gas and water lines

The digging for the utility lines was planned to do the least damage to our existing garden. We used the plans for the dry streambed as part of our guide.

Digging the trenches for the utility lines

And then the rains came and came and came. The sandy soil on the sides started to slide down towards our new door. We stared out our new back window for hours hoping that the passive drainage system I designed was going to do its job. It worked exactly as I intended but we really needed to get some structure to the entryway.

Seemingly endless rains began to erode the sandy backfill

Since I collect round things, so much of my design work entails circles. The entrance was no exception since I wanted a semi-circle as the entrance. I plotted it out on paper and then used twine to circumscribe the dimensions.

I inscribed a semi-circle for the entry platform

About a week later the cement was poured onto the sand base and we breathed a sigh of release. No more soil leading right up to the doorway.

The concrete had to be brought in by wheelbarrow since the truck was so big

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Go to Step 4 – The Stones Get Delivered

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(If you’d like to follow this project from the beginning you can start at Step 1 here)

Step 2 of Rear Garden Design Project.

On March 25, 2000 we began the excavation of the rear garden in order to add the back door entrance to the guest room addition to our home. When you first see a bobcat drive into your garden that you’ve been carefully planting and weeding over the course of 10 years it is really startling.

Frank Falino our Architect overseeing the bobcat excavation

The bobcat continued for hours digging down and removing the soil surrounding the rear foundation of our home. The soil in the top foot or two was good quality planting material but as they dug deeper, the quality of soil deteriorated to contractors fill which was disappointing since I was using it to build up other parts of my garden.

Dennis George watching as the project evolves

There is something about power equipment that mesmerizes people. As time passed, the groups standing watch at this loud and violent-like event grew. The whirring and burring of the machinery echoed disconcertedly through the woods

The mesmerizing sound of power tools

The saws used to cut through the concrete squealed with high ear splitting intensity while spewing clouds of dust both in and out of our home.

Within days we had a brand new back entrance to our home

We had our back door and new full size windows looking out on our garden brightening the rooms planned for our new guest quarters. Both the inside and outside spaces were forever changed and our home felt so much larger.

So where did the excavated soil disappear to? Whenever you are moving soil on landscape design projects you need to consider where the soil is coming from and also where is it going.

The red arrow marks some of the berm we built as a buffer to the street

Part of my plan was to use the soil to create berms on the outside perimeter of the property close to the somewhat busy street running along the back of our home. The natural slope of the land scooped towards the street but the berms created an upswing and a visual and sound buffer useful for planting.

Unfortunately the better soil was at the bottom of the piles with the filler soil on top, reversing how it was excavated. I’ve been enhancing that soil for years now.

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Go to Step 3 – After Destruction Comes Construction

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Sometimes garden projects take a long time. This one started in the year 2000.

Four O’Clocks were my first introduction to growing plants from seed. Uncle Teddy took me by the hand at his home in Schenectady and introduced me, the kid from Brooklyn, to gardening. I can still smell the soil as we dropped the seeds of Four O’Clocks into the ground he taught me to prepare. Four O’Clocks weren’t the only things growing in his garden, so was I.

The Kansas Peonies I grown in my garden was a Mother’s Day present from my son Chris. I have so many gifts he’s given to me over our many years together but I still cherish the bright pink of these robust plants each year as they bloom for me right in season. They return each Mother’s Day, expanding and adding to their beauty, as does he.

One year for my September birthday, my son, Michael came swooping in proudly bestowing upon me a stripling of a Japanese Maple. Still dangling was the $9.99 tag placed on it from Home Depot. Now this mature specimen holds court as a central focal point in my front garden.

A bouquet of Zinnias comes into my hands each year when my husband Dave buys them from the gardener with a stand up the street from us. The grin on his boyish face as he hands them to me with love is matched only by the riotous colors of the single and double flowers grouped tightly in his hands.

On Mother’s Day this year my grandson C.J. bounced up to greet me with a pot full of poppies. He shares my garden with me and helps to bring my attention to all the wonderful colors and shapes he finds there for fear I might miss them. These poppies are pink he told me and reminded me that we need to photograph everything so we’ll remember how they looked.

I’ll remember.

For years I’ve been hauling hoses back and forth across my property. Each year the hoses get heavier and more difficult to move. In the last few years I can count far too many lost additions to my garden for want of water. Not a good way to treat the plants and certainly not a good way to protect the investment I’ve made in my garden.

So we half bit the bullet and had the initial stage of an irrigation system installed. If you live on Long Island and want to know a truly professional company to work with on your irrigation needs, go to Rain Rich located in Greenlawn NY. First we met with Manuel Nava who is the service manager and did a very thorough layout and assessment of our somewhat complicated property. Then Rich Silverman, the owner and founder of Rain Rich met with us to discuss the staging of the project over time.

As he explained, since we have a mature, heavily planted garden, all the digging work would be done by hand in order not to disturb the root systems. The garden, since it was in peak season would be protected and returned as quickly as possible to an undisturbed state. As a skeptical New Yorker I figured, “Oh sure, that’ll happen!”

Well it did! Rich was true to his word. In one day he had a crew come in and hand dig all the trenching for the water and the electrical work. They first moved aside all the wood chips from my woodland walks and then dug the trenches. After the installation was completed, the soil was returned and the wood chips restored. Had I not taken pictures all day during the project, had I been away for the day and missed the frightening havoc wrecked upon my garden I would not have believed that the piping system had been installed. After all was done, it was hard to see that anything or anyone had been tromping around the property.

What an amazing and careful piece of craftsmanship!

This large vase shaped hosta emerges slightly behind some of my other hostas such as ‘Blue Cadet’. The first photo here was taken on the same day, at the same time as the photo of the emerging Cadet posted previously here.

This slug-resistant architectural specimen is a commanding presence in my perennial garden. Though planted in full sun with absolutely no sunburn effects, I plan to divide it in the fall and put a portion of it in the woodland near the Hamamelis. I think their V-shaped structure will echo each other offering a nice rhythmic change of scale and will tie the two plants together.

I’ve put that project on my to-do list for the fall. The spreadsheet keeps growing. Soon I’ll have to employ a Gertrude Jekyll type labor force to keep up with all my ideas.

I bought this plant in the early 1990′s from a mail-order house that I don’t think still exists. At least, they don’t have a web presence at this point in time. I still remember the excitement I felt when a box with the plants showed up on my deck.

It was my first plant mail order purchase. I’d worked so hard to pick and choose varieties of hostas with different leaf shapes and colors. I was still in my newbie phase of distaining variegated plants so all my purchases were solid greens and blues.

I remember how horrified I was when those straggly roots came out of the package. I felt so robbed. I’d never seen or even heard of bare-rooted plants at that time. Was I ever that young and naïve?

Well, I planted them all and they all lived. But over time many of my plant labels were lost or destroyed or misplaced so I no longer can easily identify some of them. The Krossa Regal is an exception since it has such distinctive charisma.