Note to self: just because it has been cold and miserable outside does not mean it has been cold and miserable enough to get rid of the bugs. Try to plant bulbs or otherwise dig in the dirt, apparently, and they will come out in force.

My miscalculation on this front, however, does tell me that the patio is excellently performing the function I originally had in mind for it, i.e. creating a space to sit and look around without stirring up the ravening swarm.

Anyway. Time to deploy the mosquito hat, even if it looks dorky.

I got the stones laid for all the pathways, except for the one on the east side of the yard that I will have to carve out once I've redistributed the giant pile of dirt that's in the way. I wish I could have planted the creeping thyme today, since it's going to rain for the rest of the week and it would have gotten a nice watering in, but I couldn't find it at Loblaws and I wouldn't have had time anyway, so alas. The outlines of the stones are rather smudgy at the moment because of the topsoil I swept over everything to get it in between the cracks; I am looking forward to seeing it after the rain, which should wash things clean and settle the contours a bit.

Overall, I am very pleased with the outcome of this project so far. Some of the stones are still not perfectly settled, but that will come with time/rain/ground cover, I think, and after all there's a limit to the perfection one can expect from dry-laid fieldstones (vs, say, perfectly flat flagstones laid in mortar). I have a good deal of rock left over, which I figure I will put down in the garden beds as needed for access purposes, and - more problematically - also a good deal of sand and topsoil. The topsoil I can use, but I'm at a bit of a loss for what to do with the sand...I'd make a sandbox for Rose, since God knows my sisters and I enjoyed the sandbox we had in Calgary, but she'd be too little for it until next year, and since it's building sand I don't know if it would be any good for that purpose anyway. I guess I'll throw an ad on craigslist/usedottawa and see if anyone wants free sand to schlep away.

So with THAT craziness mostly out of the way, I need to turn my attention back to the plants. I have seedlings that need to get in the ground and also seeds that need planting...damn, should have done that today, too. Well, if the rain lets up one of these evenings I will scoot out for project time; the ground will be wet, after all. Shasta daisies and pampas grass can go in the brand new sunny bed - pampas grass at the back, since if it survives it will make some nice height back there. Seedwise I have some little poppies that will be nice in the front, along with some wildflowers (scarlet flax, purple coneflowers). I have some annual seeds I may try, too; temporary solutions are better than nothing. And I may move some things (rose, peony) that are getting too much shade where they are...although maybe that should wait until the fall. We'll see how hacking out ferns and rhubarb stalks improves the light conditions. Meanwhile canterbury bells can go in the new part-shade bed, along with the lovely fuschia hardy geraniums that I haven't gotten around to planting, and some forget-me-nots.

I REALLY need to move some of those damn ferns; they are waist-high and thus would be good for height in the shade next to the west fence. Also I need to finish digging up the back of the west bed. I think I will buy one of the magnolia shrubs Loblaws is selling for $60 and put that in the sun bed, and then I need to find that flowering tree I've been speculating about for the back corner. I believe I will make a mid or late June nursery field trip.

Excavation complete:


Starting to lay stones over rock and sand (wish I'd gotten a picture of Corey steering the plate tamper, but alas):


Aaaaaaand nearly done! Just need to get more dirt into the cracks, settle a couple stones a bit more firmly, and plant ground cover - then I start on the pathways:


More views:

Landscaping weekend of doom complete! Crushed rock got compacted, pathways got at least roughly dug out (stoopid tree roots :P), turf, paper and topsoil got distributed over most of two garden beds, and sand got almost all filled in and leveled - I have the last little crescent to fill in by myself tomorrow, and then I will start hauling rocks. I was going to get Corey to help me place the heaviest ones tonight, but those are going right in the middle, and in order to get to the middle at the moment one would have to stomp through all our soft, squishy, beautifully leveled sand. So I'll start at the edge and work my way across. We spread a tarp over it for the night to prevent neighbourhood cats from using it as a luxury-sized litterbox; hopefully they (and any other suburban critters) will be disinclined to walk on that.

All this accomplishment is thanks to the yeoman service of my darling husband, who has been a baby-minding, sand-schlepping, rock-compacting SUPERSTAR for the last couple days. It's also thanks to my mom, who took over the baby-minding for the later half of today, and who used her mad productivity mojo to ALSO get groceries, make dinner, and clean the fridge (!!!) I think I may sneak out to her house during the day and leave her some flowers or something.

Looking back over previous pictures of the yard, I have to say that I am THRILLED TO PIECES with the effect of all this renovation, which you can totally see taking shape at this point. The whole yard will have so much more...more...I don't even quite know how to put it. Structure? Definition? Pizzazz? This setup actually puts all the space in the yard to work in a dynamic way, whereas before the space was just sitting there empty and useless (except for attempting to grow straggly lawn). Tomorrow I will take some progress pictures.

The remaining problem, of course, is filling the gardening spaces, because they're HUGE. Even doing one per year is going to be a significant challenge. As I said to Corey this afternoon while throwing turf and topsoil around, "holy CRAP, this is going to be a big fucking garden bed. What have I gotten myself into?" His response: "oh, you know, the usual." Heh. Touche.

Hear me roar:

RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRR

RRRRRRRRGHHHH!

Today while Rose noodled along with Corey I schlepped 1.5 tons of crushed rock from the front of the driveway to the backyard. It is now spread out in the patio circle and more or less leveled.

Tomorrow:

* mow the lawn, water the garden
* dig out pathways (OMG...more digging...nooooooes) which will involve redistributing that big pile of sort-of-turf and topsoil
* once mom arrives to watch the baby, to do with Corey: re-rent the plate tamper (long, stupid story there) and compact crushed rock, lay 3" of sand over the whole thing, and start putting down the Montague rocks
* get groceries for dinner of boeuf bourguignon (yummay) and some creeping thyme while I'm at Loblaws

I suspect I will be hacking at the pathways and putting down rocks during the week, too, but the bulk of the work - and certainly everything I need a second pair of hands for - should be done by the end of tomorrow.

2/3 of the patio dug out and more or less level, and the rest will be at least de-turfed by the end of the day. Oof. Overambition, thy name is Ami. At least I'm getting my exercise. We don't need no steenkin gym!

I managed to dig up somewhere between 1/3 and 1/2 of the patio circle yesterday. I am impatiently waiting for the rain to go away so I can tackle it again (for as long as Rose is willing to noodle along with me, anyway). My evil and possibly over-ambitious plan is to have everything dug out so we can lay the foundation on Sunday. To this end, I also need to call the aggregates place sometime in the next day or two to order crushed stone and sand.

I've realized that I probably don't need to order topsoil, seeing as how I'm digging 8" down for about 300 square feet. That should give me enough to fill cracks between stones, mix with sand for the pathway foundations, and start at least one garden bed besides. Not sure what to do with the turf, though, such as it is - at first I thought I'd just chuck it at the bottom of the new garden bed and let it compost in, but it seems unwise to do that when the turf in question is riddled with creeping charlie and dandelions. The last things I want popping up in a freshly laid garden bed are infamously persistent weeds. Same problem arises with composting the turf, but it's too heavy to put out for yard waste collection. Hmmmm.

Tomorrow, I suspect I will be hobbling around the house like a 90-year-old. BUT with the aid of a UHaul and a wheelbarrow and by wearing through the fingers of two pairs of cheapass garden gloves, we got our approximate ton of rock, ranging from little rocks



to medium rocks



to really friggin big rocks.



I'm glad we did this today, because I wouldn't have wanted to do it in weather any warmer (not to mention any buggier). Also I have renewed respect - awe is more the word - for the people who first attempted to farm in this part of the country, because we could have toiled away at pulling that wall apart for days and barely made a dent in it. The fact that somebody dug all that rock out of land they were attempting to cultivate kind of blows my mind. Especially given the vegetation, e.g. poison ivy and prickly elm (prickly being a serious understatement - like very tall, very thickety, very vigorous rose-bushes).

Also, patio layout!

Faint but visible:


Better view of the lines marking pathways:

Patio timetable! Hopefully, anyway...

Today or tomorrow Call aggregates place to order crushed rock, sand, topsoil, and possibly mulch while I'm at it; get marking paint, mason's line, line level, and stakes from Home Despot
May 18 Go get rocks with help of UHaul van and brute squad
Sometime next week Mark outlines of patio and paths; possibly start digging, depending on weather
May 22 Have aggregate stuff delivered
May 23 Dig out, fill, and compact foundation; install heavier rocks
May 24 Install rest of rocks, fill cracks with topsoil, and plant creeping thyme/moss

I took off this evening to Montague to check out the prospective source of patio stones. I think it will work beautifully - the stones are a little uneven, being natural unfinished rock, but not in a way that would be unpleasant on the feet. As an added bonus, I was charmed to discover that the stones are coming from the tumbling-down wreck of a 200-year-old dry-laid stone wall and from cairns piled up in the fields around the same period. HOW COOL. In addition to being easy on the feet, my rocks will have character!

Of COURSE this weekend it will be pouring rain, but next weekend I will muster the brute squad and some babysitting and go get a truckload.

Recent discoveries, notes, observations:
* The things I thought were geraniums, with the bright orange blood? They're not geraniums. I have no idea wtf they are; 99% sure they're a weed, though. Celandine, maybe? Anyway, they are EVERYWHERE, but not for long.
* Mowing the front lawn this morning, I found patches of what I think are daisies and yarrow growing in the middle of it. I am going to mow around them and see what they turn into.
* As sad and scraggly as said lawn is, it does look better for having been mowed. The backyard lawn, meanwhile, is so weed-ridden and generally lame that I can't find the motivation to bother.
* I posted before about the lovely purpleleaf sandcherry, which we wants, precioussss. As it turns out, it looks like we already have one in front of the front steps. Awesome! Pictures to come when it blooms.
* The front yard in general is actually looking not-half-bad at the moment. The hanging baskets full of mini-petunias I hung by the door certainly don't hurt, either.
* The probably-a-spirea looks a hundred times better with the dead wood mostly chopped out. As a bonus, this freed up a nice chunk of sunny dirt to weed and plant stuff in. After the thing blooms I will take out the remaining low-hanging branches, thus freeing up more dirt, and call it pruned for this year. Also, I ♥ my new bigass Lee Valley ratcheting pruners.
* Blaze climbing rose is already twice the height it was when I planted it. Eeeeexcellent.
* Something is eating the flower buds off my rhododendron...close inspection suggests insects. Grrrrrr. Dammit, City of Ottawa, I want my rotenone powder back! Well, at least the leaf spikes seem to be undamaged.

Patio Progress:
So the UsedOttawa vendor with the rocks is a private individual with, well, a lot of rocks on their land. I am going to go visit them on Tuesday, hopefully, to check that said rocks will be barefoot-friendly enough to use for my purposes. If they are, this will be an unbelievably kickass bargain, to the tune of saving me $2.50 per square foot, aka about $1000 when taxes and pickup vs. delivery are figured in. So needless to say I really hope this works out. The stones will not be as schmancy as the $3/sqft limestone variety, but I'm going for a rustic look anyway, so whatevah.

Brought my seedlings home from mom's place. Mixed results - no pinks, marigolds, jacob's ladder or astilbe. One single solitary delphinium. And one of the cats has just chowed down on the pampas grass, and then to add insult to injury, threw it up all over the floor. Siiiigh. Well, we'll see if they recover, it's not as if the stuff was likely to bloom the first year anyway.

The annual seedlings are doing well, though. Cosmos, asters, bachelor's buttons, and zinnias are all looking good. Need to assess what annuals to buy...after tomorrow's plant sale, I guess, so I know what space I have. Lots of begonias and double impatiens to fill the shady west bed, anyway. I would really like to track down some cleome, too, but have never yet seen it for sale. In any case, the prospect of being able to mess around with all the sunny annuals has me drooling. Although it would be very easy to spend a lot of money this way, so I will endeavour to use annuals only as punctuation and container plants.

Anyway, need to make dumplings, so my garden fantasies will have to wait. Till TOMORROW. Ahahahahahahaa!

Hmm, good job I waited to go get groceries, suddenly it is pouring out. Hopefully this will not be an all-afternoon state of affairs, I wanted to go wield my new bigass pruning choppers at the anonymous shrub. I'm pretty sure said shrub is a spirea, so I shouldn't hack at it until after it's bloomed, but the dead wood all around the bottom can come off, anyway. I tried applying my normal pruning shears to this task and they just weren't up to it. Once it stops raining I will also have to go out and wield Neem oil at the lilies. My usual weapon of choice has apparently fallen under the pesticide ban...which, for the record, I totally support, but dammit, rotenone was the only thing that actually worked on the beetles. Well, I hear good things about the Neem, you just have to reapply it constantly (e.g. after it rains, after watering, every couple days otherwise). Hopefully it will be effective.

Found a place via UsedOttawa.com selling calcified sandstone of all shapes and sizes for $100 a ton. Since a ton is estimated to cover 200 sq ft in 3" rock, and I need 325 sq ft, I could probably get all my patio stones (since they only need to be about 1.5" thick for my purposes) for about $100, which is eeeeeeeeexcellent. The trick of course is that you have to pick it up yourself. Well, UHaul's website tells me that their cargo van carries a max load of about 3700 lbs, and a ton (assuming it's a metric ton) is about 2200 lbs. Then I'd just need to find a good source for crushed rock, sand, and topsoil. Greely Sand & Gravel is the first Google stop for such things...hmm, not sure how metric tons and cubic yards match up, guess I'll have to ask about that to get price confirmation, but I *think* I might be able to achieve this patio within a budget of $500...yep, confirmed. Sah-weeeeeet.

I spent a chunk of the afternoon raking up pine needles, and holy crap were there ever a lot of them.



This endeavour also freshened my resolve to get some sort of renovations going back here, because underneath the pine needles the "lawn" is just sad. Especially under the tree, where it sort of straggles off into dirt and moss and creeping charlie (although the moss is lovely and I think I'll keep it). Also the planting beds, such as they are, have almost zero definition; they're sort of, you know, where the grass has straggled off and there's other plants instead of dirt. Sometimes there are borders of paving stones or bricks, but these are mostly half-submerged and overgrown (much easier to see now than they were in the summer, though!)

Here is a rough idea of what I've been daydreaming I might do:



This would leave some lawn in the foreground, i.e. for kids to play on, but in between the paths drawn in brown here there would be cottage-garden-type riots of plants. Probably starting with a magnolia where that little heap of newspapers is. As I may have mentioned before, my evil plan would be to do the hardscaping this year and work on cleaning up the existing beds (such as they are), and then each year I would fill in one section between the paths. Oooooooh I am ITCHING to get started on this, but (a) I suspect the materials for the hardscaping will be stupid expensive and (b) I fear that I will either get bogged down or screw things up trying to lay flagstone myself.

Meanwhile I am delighted to note that (a) my monster alliums are coming up, and (b) the new camera takes beautifully sharp and detailed pictures.



Also, despite the needles everywhere, that tree is really gorgeous.




Eventually I also need to do something about the front yard:



BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORINNNNNNNNG. Boring, boring, boring. Look at all that grass! My God! Still, this is the part that will annoy people if it's a mess, so for now I'll settle for cutting the grass and practice on the backyard. When I'm a little more confident in my garden-wrangling abilities and a little more practiced in actually following through on garden projects, I'll tackle this.

Awesome idea from the April ish of Canadian Gardening: a circular patio, with garden beds around it divided up by paths like spokes of a wheel. This way there is a nice spot to sit and enjoy the garden, beds of manageable size, access to weed everything, and beds that can be viewed on three of four sides. Dammit, I should have taken masonry instead of carpentry. I could be doing my own hardscaping. Paying to have someone lay something down like that beautiful spiral of cobblestone would probably be insanely expensive.

Further awesome idea: "underplant[ing a tree], in the style of an English cottage garden, with...spring bulbs of every colour." I spy a use for the ground around the white pine out back, yes I do. In fact, sometime this week I am going to march out there and stick my tulips in the ground, since the snow is off the back of the yard. I figure since I did leave them outside over the winter there is the remotest chance they might come up, although I doubt they'd have frozen as hard in the ground as they did sitting in the carport.

Also inspiring from said magazine is that the gardens featured that aren't professionally designed and planted are typically the product of 20-odd years' work. So it's no tragedy that my gardens have not looked like that. My mom has remarked that it takes 10 years for a garden to really "arrive". And the idea of spending 20 years on the same garden is oddly appealing, despite my typical impatience. After all, you do get gratification year after year in between.