Landscaping before and after pics. Planting bed design.

Well, the stone company who was going to come and move my stone table had a break down on their forklift thing.  They did not come and move the table so I could not build the patio or the fire pit.  I was very very disappointed with this.  I still had a lot to do though.  I had a friend come and help me yesterday.  That was nice and a lot got down.  One of the things we did was design the planting bed on part of my driveway.  I transplanted and moved a couple of plants around, removed sod with a pick (no sod cutter this time), and mulch the area.  It was pretty darn hard.  I also tried to remove the basketball hoop but the person installed it into about a 2 foot by 4 foot pillar of concrete and we just could not move it.  Anyhoo, here are the before and after pictures of the planting bed.  In the future, there is going to be a small concrete paver pad in the middle of this bed.  That work and those pictures will came some time later.  It is hard to see the plants but the change in the bed is dramatic.  By the way, I am very sore from the work today.  It is a lot of work to removed sod with a pic but it is easier than using a shovel. All in all, I burned around 400-500 calories on this part of the days landscaping work.

Before I removed the sod for the planting bed

 

THis is a before shot of a planting bed prior to sod removal

 

This is an after picture of the planting bed

 

This is the after picture

The re-birth of my landscaping obsession! Hardscape, planting beds, and design oh my!!

This is my back lawn with additional flagstone paths that I built coming off the deck and through the trees on the right.

As many of you may have noticed, I have been blogging about my landscaping efforts.  I have a love-hate relationship with my yard.  I have been living in my home now for almost one year.  Since in my mind the landscape is an extension of myself and the interior living spaces, I made sure that the home that we purchased had magnificent potential in this area.  I even started getting the landscape design done prior to moving in.  The winter is passing by now and my desire to be outside working on my yard is growing at a fast clip.

I know that for this blog, landscaping is off-topic.  I have considered creating another blog specifically for my landscaping pics and improvements.  I have decided not to do this because having one blog takes more time than I would have ever imagined and I don’t want to take up precious mind space with another blog.

So fortunately or maybe unfortunately, I am going to be posting my landscaping efforts on Run4change.  Inspired by my wonderful blogging friend Angela, I have realized that life improvement is a complicated web that works it’s way into all areas of life.  So landscaping is for me.  It is an area that I improve my peace, improve my sense of accomplishment, and improve the overall access to the beauty of life.  I am not changing directions with this blog at all, I am just letting you all know that I will be doing additional postings on landscaping.  I hope that you all enjoy them as they are just an extension of the guy who lost 130 lbs.  I never worked in the yard for even one minute a week prior to losing weight so this is a huge victory for me.  I am using the weight loss benefits in a practical way to improve my surroundings.

Here is what I plan to do in my yard this spring/summer:

• Finish planting the last three new trees and re-planting a couple that I need to transplant.
• Move a 1500 pound stone table just ten feet away from its current location (This magnificent table came with the home)
• Finish the flagstone patio and fire pit (This will go where the stone table currently resides.  The link is a pic of what I might want)
• Finish around 300 more feet of stepping stone pathways.
• Begin establishing planting around my home in the foundation beds
• Improve the drainage of my lawn to get ready for yet another rainy season
• Improve the irrigation system and allow it to cover all new planting beds.
• Make all trees not needed for my plan to give them away for free to people who need them for their own plans
• Build my cross sculpture in the back yard and design a nice seating area next to it.

That is all I can think of right now.  I am sure there is more but I am also sure that I won’t even get all of the items above done.  That will be ok with me since I am considering this a long term plan.  If I just keep at it, like with weight loss and ultras and marathons, I will get to the finish line.  At that time and place, my thankful heart will abound with joy.