Garden Project!

We decided to postpone painting Adrienne's office -- she had too much work to do this weekend, so rather than try to squeeze the project in & end up stressed out, yelling at each other about the proper technique for painting trim, we decided to just put it off for another weekend.

Instead, I took advantage of some excellent weather & tackled a yard project that's been on my mind for a couple weeks: turning the panda corner into a little reading/meditation/morning coffee/sitting spot.

As you can see, the placement of the lemon verbena, hibiscus-like plant, & two rose bushes set this corner sort of awkwardly apart from the rest of the yard, making it basically unusable as-is:

View when you enter the yard.

View from the side.

What's back there: ten square feet of grass & spiders.

I've been reading two books about garden design that gave me the idea for the project. One pointed out that even in a small yard, it's nice to have multiple places to sit & view the rest of the garden from different vantage points, and the other is all about landscaping for privacy in dense environments. I realized that I could take advantage of the fact that this corner is set apart & a little hidden, & turn it into a cozy spot to sit. The added bonus is that it is one of the only spots in the yard that gets bright, direct light in the morning, & the only one that gets light shade in the afternoon. 

Another thing I've been thinking a lot about is finding ways to repurpose random stuff that was left in the house when we moved in: scraps of wood, cracked flower pots, a tire, a name plate from the tailgate of a Nissan pickup truck, an old headboard, etc.  

I was planning to take apart the headboard & build a bench, when, sitting out in the yard with Adrienne & our friend Brian on Saturday, I saw the tire through the window of the Haunted Garden Shed, & realized that would fit the spot perfectly, while the flower pots sitting next to it could be broken up to make some sort of paving material.

On the way out this morning to start the project, I took the recycling with me, & I remembered something else I read this week about burying wine bottles bottom-up for a paving sort of effect -- we've had folks over a couple times this week, so there were a handful of wine bottles in there, & I have plenty of beer bottles of all shapes & sizes that I keep handy for homebrewing, so I thought it would be worth a try to see if I could make something interesting. Why not?

Here's what I did, (more or less) step by step:

Step One -- cut back the rose bushes, clear out grass & spiders:

The rose bushes attacked me, but this was the easy part...

Step Two -- put the tire in place, & dig a hole for the bottles:

This was the hard part --  it's all hard-packed clay & inch-thick roots down there. 

I bet it took me an hour to dig just 12 inches down.

Meanwhile, my friends were there keeping me company & cheering me on:

"Be mindful of your back!" said Zoey.

Step Three -- setting the bottles into a design:

Finally the fun part!

The stick is there to help me get them level with the ground.

In the end, I decided it might be more interesting to leave them at different levels.

Step Four -- smash smash smash!

Big, medium, & small!

In the spirit of repurposing as much of what we found here as possible, I also added all the bits of glass & pottery that we've found around the yard over the past nine months (!) since we moved in.

Step Five -- build a small wall on the side, with bricks found in the yard & Haunted Garden Shed:

Sorry, forgot to take a photo. Here is somebody else's photo of a brick.

Step Six -- step back & take some photos of the finished product:

Done!

A little closer in...

There's the brick wall -- a visual boundary, & also a convenient place for a drink.

View from the side.

I think I would like to plant a berry bush or something in front of the brick wall at some point.

Step Seven -- that rim inside the tire isn't going to be comfy, so make a cushion:

Old blanket we moved in with, rolled & tied up like the spiral rugs we had when I was growing up.

Old towel sewn on as a cover.

Beginning to end, I think it took me about six hours, maybe seven, to finish. I ought to sleep well tonight! 

And be sore tomorrow.

Speaking of sleeping well, after all that hard work outside, Zoey was exhausted. She came back inside & settled down for a long nap in the corner of the couch: