Stoned

Getting stoned is probably what it would take to make my back feel better, but since I do not indulge in that sort of thing, I will have to settle for a couple of Advil.  What DID get stoned today was all of the flower gardens around our house.

Anna from the nursery called yesterday to tell us that Dave would be delivering the two tons of red cedar bark landscape stones at 9:00 a.m. today.  He arrived on time, and soon we were looking at a pile of red stones in our driveway.  Thankfully, we asked him to dump them near the garage rather than at the end of the driveway.  That both gave us room to park our car back in the driveway, and  allowed us to just shovel some of the stones into the front garden.  Actually, having them located there also made wheelbarrowing them to the back yard easier.

Rick starts to tackle our pile of stones.

When the rock first arrived, both Rick and I thought, "Boy, that sure does not look like 4000 pounds of stone."  However, after moving it all around, we believe that the load was accurate! We also were not sure that we ordered enough, but in the end, we had to find places in the gardens to use what was left.

I had my doubts that we would be able to get all of it moved today.  Silly me.  I should know by now that if he did not drop dead of a heart attack, Rick would not rest until everything was in its place.

Hopefully, the stones will keep the weeds out
and the moisture in the gardens.

We did the front garden first, using just shovels to distribute the stones.  That made getting them around the plants fairly easy since trying to rake these stones anywhere was impossible.  The stones are heavy, not like lava rock.  These stones will not blow away which is what we wanted because then we can use a leaf blower to clean debris out of the gardens.

The stones in this garden should solve the
problem of dirt splashing up on the fence when it rains.

After the front garden was filled, we moved to the back yard and filled in the corner garden and then the Florida room garden.

Here, too, the stones should prevent dirt from
splashing up on the house.  Since this area is
in the shade most of the day, no grass would grow
here anyway.

We still had quite a bit left over, so we filled in around the mailbox.  We took a quick trip to Steve and Chris' house to borrow their tamper.  Then back home, a bit of tamping, a lot of adding stone where we still felt we could put some down, and still more tamping.

The red rock will protect the mailbox post
from weed-whacker damage.

Finally, we hooked up the hose and gave everything a heavy hosing down.  The small sandy bits of stone and dust settled in, and the rest of the stone turned a brilliant cedar red.

The whole job took us until 1:00 p.m.  I am glad that it is finished so we can spend tomorrow as a true day of rest. We earned it.