Let the Landscaping Commence

I am way behind on posting, but rather than going into the past and quickly posting about the last six or seven months I am going to jump in to the present.  As I find the time I will try to catch up on past events and memories.

I've really missed the garden that Rob and I created back in Aurora.  We worked very hard over the twelve years we lived there to create a yard that we loved.

We hosted many parties and two wedding receptions in our backyard.  I spent countless hours planning, planting, transplanting, watering, weeding and nurturing the plants that were (mostly) thoughtfully selected.  I'll admit there were plenty of spur of the moment purchases too.  Some worked out.  Some didn't.  But it was always rewarding and enjoyable to see the progress.  

Rob will be the first to admit that he didn't love spending a lot of time outside because of the bugs and the humidity so even though we had an awesome patio it didn't get used as often as it could have been used.

It's been tough for me to wrap my head and my heart around starting over with the garden and yard here.  The soil is different, the climate is different and the planting zone is different than what I taught myself to garden in AND I am older than I was twelve years ago.

(Note:  when I say garden I mean all trees, shrubs, flowers, herbs and the occasional vegetable - I feel that needs to be clarified because a lot of people here in Utah seem to associate the word garden with only or mostly vegetables)  

But, one can't mope around forever.  We want to be able to use our backyard.  We've discovered we like to be outside here and want useable spaces.  We'd like to be able to have the option of hosting parties in our backyard again and having more than dust and rocks in our yard.

So we discussed what we'd like to do with our backyard and how we see it being used.  We created a priority list and started moving forward.

The first thing we wanted to do was get in our hardscape.

Planting trees, so we could get them growing and established to start creating shade, was our second priority.  As it turned out, we actually planted some of the trees before we got the patio in, but they weren't in a spot that would impact the ability to get the machinery in and out of the backyard.

We hired a landscape designer to come by and draw up a plan for us.  We liked some of her suggestions, but being an impatient and opinionated gardener I had already come up with a design for our patio.  I wanted the new patio to match the existing patio, so it looked like an intentional design and not like an addition.  The existing patio was basically six rectangles so I doubled that to create the dining patio and then stair-stepped the rectangles to connect the dining patio and the existing covered patio.

I laid out the rough outline using some of the extra rocks we had laying around.  This gave us a chance to consider the size and the design before committing to it.

Rob and I had been talking about adding a fire pit since we designed the house.  We even had the builder add a gas valve to the back so we could use the natural gas if we wanted to.  We realized the rock wall created a nice wind barrier and also offered seating so I created a simple oval design for the fire pit and tucked it next to the rock wall.  It intersected the patio layout a little but we both agreed that made for a nice way to connect the two parts.

Rob dug a fifteen foot trench and buried a 4" pvc pipe eighteen inches deep so we can run the natural gas pipe from the house to the fire pit through this sleeve.  We thought having natural gas would be a good option because we wouldn't have to worry about random sparks escaping during the dry summer months and we wouldn't be restricted from having fires in the winter if we decided we wanted to.

The yellow line shows the stair-step rectangles that lead between the dining patio and the covered patio.  The blue line shows where the fire pit will be.  You can see the capped pipe Rob buried.

We selected a landscape company and after waiting for almost two weeks they finally came out and started digging.  Noah was so excited!  He ran from the back porch to the front porch watching Chito dig and dump the dirt (can you see his green socks sticking out of the deck railings?).

They probably could have finished the job much more quickly, but we were a small job and they've had a busy spring.  It took one afternoon to dig, one afternoon to frame it out and spread the gravel and then it rained.  So we waited for the concrete.  Waiting for the concrete seems to be the thing up here in this neighborhood.  

I had spent the day at my folk's cabin, trying to get it dried out from a small flood and came home to a very pleasant surprise.  We had a patio!

When I arrived they were just finishing floating the last rectangle.  Then Chito grabbed his broom and worked on matching the finish of the existing concrete.

I don't know how many times I had to say, "No, we don't want a special finish.  No, we don't want a stain.  No, we don't want it stamped.  We want it to match the patio that is already there".  It seems that having plain, broomed concrete is not Cool or Trendy.  But, it's what we wanted.  

Once Chito understood that he did a great job matching the finish . 

It is such a pleasure working with someone who takes pride in his work and catches the vision of what we are trying to achieve.

Well, almost.  It took awhile for him to catch the vision of what we are doing with the fire pit.  But I don't think he'll be installing that.

He wanted to know why we didn't just make it all concrete.

Hopefully, I'll be telling that story in the next week or two.