Building a Mountain out of a Molehill

Way back on April 21, 2012 I wrote about some of my favorite views and one not-so-favorite one.  This is the not-so-favorite one.  It was a tiny bit better when viewed in real life, since you can focus on the view instead of the door frames.  But still, there a rather large area with not much to see.  I had run out of ideas when I originally re-landscaped the yard, leaving the three citrus trees and a few weedy Salvias.  Then a couple of years ago I took out the lemon tree that I'd grown to hate.  So behind the door frame, there really was nothing to see at all!  And this is the view from our living room. Since then, I've tried to focus on the bird feeder just to the left of this view and when my thoughts drifted to the right, I tried to figure out what I wanted to put in there. 

I've looked at plants that might be interesting enough to be a statement.  I've wondered about adding on to the water feature.   I searched Pinterest, and I started noticing some rather beautiful raised beds.  Then a few weeks ago I did a rather foolish thing.  I volunteered to have the local garden club add my garden to a tour of 5-6 of our members' homes.  Yikes!  Now I feel I need to get in there and really make my garden look its best...  and finally do something about that area that has felt like a gaping hole.

So here's my idea.  I plan to build a raised herb garden that echoes the waterfall.  And of course, I want to do it for next to nothing.  So I froze my gym membership to give me both more time and money and I'm doing my weight lifting at home.

 I started off with retaining wall blocks from Home Depot.  I've found that my car and my back can move six 60 pound blocks in a day.  I want to keep the hill from actually contacting the fence.  Like the waterfall, with tall plants in the back blending in with the ivy on the fence, it really shouldn't look too strange.  I've got I made 4 runs there.  That's 24 blocks...   1,440 pounds, if you care to know!  Plus 8 cubic yards of store-bought soil.




I went out to Peach Hill Soils to get some rocks.  Peach Hill would deliver to my house, but they would dump them onto my driveway and couldn't promise they wouldn't damage it.  The owner thought he might be able to find someone with a truck and time they wanted to fill with a small job, but I guess it sounded like too much work for not enough pay.

So my Camry is now the rock hauling "truck" and I am the manual laborer.  It is a lot of work, but the money is right!  Plus, I did say I would be doing my weight lifting in my garden.

 This picture represents two "Camry/truck" loads of rocks.  It's getting there!  maybe one more load of big rocks and I can start filling in with smaller rocks.  It's not a mountain yet, or even a molehill, but at least it hints at something to look at.