Finishing Touches

 Yesterday we spent quite a few hours adding landscape fabric to the new backyard garden.  Since the garden is over 50 feet long, we could not run the fabric down the garden in one strip.  Instead, we had to cut one yard pieces and piece them into the garden as we fit them around each plant.  The fabric is heavy, so it hopefully will cut down on the weeds.

Heavy landscape fabric covers the new garden.

Rick had ordered red cedar rock for the garden to match the rock in our other gardens. The company who supplied and delivered the rock also offered the rental of a hopper which would be filled with the rock, so that all we would have to do was position a wheelbarrow under the hopper chute, push down the lever, and the rock would pour into the wheelbarrow.  That sounded like a much easier way to load a wheelbarrow than by shoveling rock into the wheelbarrow from a heap of stones in the driveway.  We were supposed to get the hopper and stone delivered "around noon" today.

Our hopper was the second to be delivered
today by the landscape company.

This morning at 8:00, we received a phone call from a driver who said that he would be dropping off the hopper and the stone "in about a half an hour."  Oka-a-a-y.  We quickly changed into our work clothes, and Rick moved our car out of the driveway.  The driver was timely as he dropped off the hopper and the stone.

The hopper made quick, easy work
of loading the wheelbarrow with stone.

That's when the work really started.  We filled the wheelbarrow and walked it back to the backyard.  Rick dumped it into the garden and started to spread it around while I went back to the driveway to get another load of stone.  We worked until noon, and then took a break for lunch.

After lunch we finished unloading all of the stone, adding stone to one of the back corner gardens and some the last of the stone into the garden in front of our kitchen windows.  We finished that work by 1:30.  

The garden is complete!

While Rick washed down the stone, washed out the hopper, and cleaned up the driveway and pavers from the wheelbarrow tracks, I grabbed a rake and filled a bag full of leaves that we had blown out of the corner gardens.  

Earlier in the week, we had purchased paint to tint the concrete that we had laid in front of the fence to protect it from getting cut by weed-whackers welded by our landscape folks.  While I came in to shower, Rick painted the concrete in front of the north fence.

We decided on a creamy light brown
color to match the pavers that lead to the back yard.

We now have a completed garden, fresh stone in various places, a somewhat raked lawn, and half of the painting completed in the back yard.  We are pleased with the results.

Next week Monday we get the second dose of the Pfizer vaccine against Covid-19.  We were warned that some people experience side effects from the second vaccine, so we wanted to complete this outdoor work before the weekend.  That way we can lay low on Monday afternoon and Tuesday in case either of us do not feel well after the vaccine.  We can just sit back and enjoy our new garden in the back yard.