A Wall and Polly

Exhaustion is the key to our existence right now, although Rick worked harder than I did today, so he is even more tired than I am for once.  However, we both are pleased with our accomplishments today.

Before church, we stopped at Lowe's to buy some landscape adhesive for concrete and stone structures.  After services, we returned home, changed into work clothes, and gathered the materials we would need to complete our task for today. After a light lunch, we were ready to work.

Last year, we planted the Areca Palm in the corner to stabilize
the soil and to add a little visual interest to the corner.

We wanted to take the old edgers from the Florida Room garden to complete a garden wall around the Areca Palm next to the sheds.  That area is raised a bit from the rest of the yard, so mud from that area is prone to slide downhill in a heavy rain storm.  While that is not all bad, it does make a mess of the paved area in front of the sheds. Thus,  keeping the soil in place and preventing a mess were two of the three reasons we wanted to build the edger wall.  The third reason was to have symmetrical gardens in both corners of the back wall in the yard.

In the left-hand corner of the yard, we built a wall
to house the gardenia tree and garden.

Since the garden in that area slopes, we knew that the edger wall had to be two levels high (just as the other garden is) and that the bottom course would almost be buried at one end.  However, that was necessary to keep the wall level on top.

Rick checked the level of the first course of edgers
as he laid them in the paver base.

Once we laid out where the wall would be placed, Rick dug out a foundation area.  As he worked down the trench, he added and compressed paver base while checking the level of the edger bricks with each one he placed.  My job was to feed the edgers to him, fetch tools as needed, and to watch the outlines to make sure the wall was even and aesthetically pleasing.

The second course of edgers is almost in place.

With the first course level and in place, the second course was easier to place.  We still had to chip apart a couple of bricks to fit the pattern, but the rest was just a matter of adding glue and placing the edgers so they would overlap the bottom course by half a brick and would follow the curve of the wall.

The completed wall now matches the garden in the other corner of the yard.

By a little after 2:00 p.m., we were finished with the garden wall.  We cannot do more with the area now since the glue will need at least 24 hours to cure.  Thankfully, we had sunshine and a good breeze blowing today which both kept us from dying in the heat.  Sunshine tomorrow will help the glue cure, so we are happy for this stretch of warm and sunny weather.

After we finished with the wall, since we both were sweaty and dirty, we decided to go to Home Depot to get 30 more edger bricks for the house gardens that we want to work on tomorrow.  Along with the edgers, we also bought two more bags of paver base.

Rick asked me if I wanted to look at any plants.  At first I said, "no," but then a beautiful hibiscus caught my eye.  While he maneuvered the brick cart to the checkout, I went over to check out the selection of hibiscus.  I found a full, fat, beautiful hibiscus with three open flowers and a load of blossoms ready to bloom.  Rick saw by the look on my face that we were not going to leave the store without that plant.

Polly looks small now, but with luck she will
grow to fill the entire space.

As I carried it up to the front counter, one of the blooms brushed against my throat and face.  It left a yellow trail of pollen all over me, so I decided to name the plant Polly.

We were beat by the time we got home, but we pushed ourselves to unload the edgers and the paver base.

I love the color of Polly and know it will delight us
as we see it from the Florida Room.

I knew that I wanted to out Polly next to the sheds.  If she grows to her full potential, she will be as wide as the sheds are deep, and she will be just as tall.  We added potting soil and fertilizer to the hole we dug just to give Polly a good start.  We'll have to water her each day for the next couple of months to get her established before we leave for the summer.  With luck and no major hurricanes in the coming year, she should add a wonderful bit of color in front of the neutral colored sheds for years to come.