Life of Wry

… means revealing the back fence.  Uh oh.

My gardening partner Frances and I have so many plans for the back yard. Until we removed that volunteer fig tree and took out this sun-blocking, no-name hedge (which, of course, was much denser before the hacking), replacing the back fence was not one of them.

Here’s where the list does stand as of today:

– Redistribute all the wood chips that once surrounded the play structure. This is a bit sad, but we are not in need of a soft landing anymore.  Back in 2002, Jim scattered 10 yards of redwood chips, much of which will serve nicely today as mulch in numerous flower beds.  Yay.

– Sadder: repurpose the play structure.  It’s a lovely two-story, redwood edifice, the bottom of which will serve nicely as a garden shed.  Just need to replace the sandbox with a solid floor and we’re good to go: garden shed with its own built-in sitting deck on top (as long as you are fit enough to climb the ladder).  Related: sell or give away the big red slide.

– Re-lay garden paths. Years of boy play has resulted in paths that are ghosts of their former rock selves.  Current concept is to create enormous stamped concrete stepping stones along newly routed paths. We’ll see what the hardscape guy says about that.

– Build a large raised bed for vegetables and herbs in what is now the pit, formerly the northwest sitting deck (definitely a pre-kid thing).

– Build a platform and relocate the compost bins to a more suitable spot on the south end.

– Plant a new nectarine or peach tree, plant said vegetable garden, relocate a whole bunch of snow-in-summer that presently (and beautifully, I might add) fills the pit, and consider a few more plants to fill in areas created by removal of fig and hedge.

These are the last phases of a project that has included replacing the entire irrigation system, re-rocking the dry creek bed, replanting the entire mound with native grasses, and a whole, whole bunch of new plantings everywhere.  We’ve removed, pruned, weeded, and relocated all manner of plants and/or beds over the last couple of years and it’s looking really great back there! It was an effort that needed to wait until Peter was done with his assault.

Jim and I have some side yard work to do (Jim’s a collector of anything with future potential), and Peter and I have some porch work to do (presently, he has a ping pong table, three workout benches and weight paraphernalia galore interfering with our view of the yard… we’ve agreed to a more discreet arrangement in a more out of the way spot).

Then, we’ll be done for awhile in the back yard. Unless we decide to replace that back fence.

The front yard’s been a priority the last couple years; I’ll report on its progress at another time.