So, we started our landscaping project last weekend. Well, sort of. Our backyard is at two different levels. The higher level runs the length of our neighbors house and extends about two and half feet. At the edge of the higher level they put railroad ties that served as a divider and also kept the dirt from washing away. I'm not sure exactly how long those railroad ties had been there, but they were in bad shape. Several of them had begun to split and fall apart; so last weekend we started out our lovely landscaping adventure by pulling out all the railroad ties in the backyard. That in and of itself wasn't too bad. Surprisingly it only took a couple hours to dig them out, load them up, and haul them off. At this point I was saying to myself "ahh, maybe this won't be so bad after all." Wrong.
Our plans were to spend every Saturday during the day for the next month or so working in the backyard. Well, you know what they say: plans are made to be broken; and we would sure hate to disappoint. We did not work on the backyard this weekend because we had much more pressing issues to tend to: city wide garage sale in Neosho. As much as I dislike going to garage sales, I must say it sure does beat landscaping. Since we did not make time to work on the backyard this weekend we have decided that we will spend a couple hours out there each night this week playing catch up.
This week is going to consist of leveling out the backyard, and well, after looking at today's progress, I think we will be doing good to even get that done. Although leveling out the backyard is time consuming and hard manual labor the up side is that it doesn't cost much. Once we get the yard leveled out we start getting into the costly part. We have to build a retaining wall where the pulled out the railroad ties. We could go the cheaper route and just use railroad ties, but that just seems like a huge waste of time and money to me. I really don't ever want to do this again, so I think we're going to opt for stone retaining wall blocks. After we get the retaining wall in place we're going to have to have a couple loads of river rock brought in to cover the walkway from the back patio to the grass. Because the dogs constantly run and play here it is nothing but dirt; I'm sure you can imagine what my floor looks like after the dogs come in from the rain or snow. Once we get the retaining wall and river rock in place then we have to seed the yard and start our flowerboxes. That part doesn't sound so bad.
Right now I am just so overwhelmed. I am very much so one of those instant gratification people and it is driving me insane that my yard is torn up. Hopefully we make big strides in the next month or so…
Make sure you put together the retaining wall good because with rain and other adverse weather conditions sometimes it can not keep its integrity.
ReplyDeleteI know what you mean about the instant gratification. It's hard for me to plant anything because I like any plant that has about 3 months worth of growth so planting anything small or puny seems like a waste of time (even thought it's not!). Good luck!