Building a Mountain out of a Molehill, part 2

I think most of the heavy lifting is over for this project.  The parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme are all in, as well as oregano, mint, basil, and lettuce.  I also sowed some cilantro seeds.

I was so happy when I was planning this herb garden that there is a watering system available!  When my friend Daniel installed the sprinklers I was surprised to see a drip line back there.  It didn't make much sense to me.  But the drip line head is just to the left of the mini-mountain.  That made it very easy to run three lines up there.  Hopefully that will be enough to get everything watered properly.  There are still a few lines available to add later.  Perhaps I should run the cycle when I can watch it and maybe even put something out there to serve as a rain gauge.  Remember, I define myself as a lazy gardener.  I know I'm not likely to stay on top of things if I have to water by hand regularly.

I plan to post another photo when I've filled in more of the crevices with soil, the friendly weeds that are serving as the ground cover fill back in, and the lettuce and herbs are larger.  For now, it's filling its purpose. . . to give me something to look at out the living room windows.

First Things First: Hard Scape

First Things First

1 Hard Scape

 We put in sidewalks.  We tried to avoid straight lines.  We have a path to go all around the yard.  We put in the pond, the very best thing in our garden.  And we put in a sprinkler system.  All of these were good decisions and I am so glad we started there.

We had Rick Martinez, of Martinez Bobcat Service remove the white rocks from the side yard.  When he was done, he offered to move the huge rocks that had just been delivered.  Then he removed some buried cement by our driveway, dug up tree roots, delivered some other big rocks, and tilled in the soil amendments.  I fantasized about owning a Bobcat.  He had attachments for scooping, jack-hammering, trenching, and all kinds of things.  Rick ended up doing a lot of work for us.  The man is an artist with a Bobcat!   It was my pleasure to watch him work while thinking about how much work he was saving my back.  I actually enjoyed writing him checks! 

My son, Jon, and husband, Allen, put in a big pond and waterfall.  This pond was about 8' x 12' and lined with cement. Jon did much of the planning and prep work.  Allen helped him mix and pour cement while I made runs to Home Depot for more supplies. While we ended up replacing the pond with a rubber-lined one, this cement pond gave us much pleasure for a number of years.  We bought "feeder goldfish" for a dollar or two.  Since then, we've added a few Shubunkin but no pricey Koi for our pond!  We spent a lot of money trying to find a good filtration system.  They all needed a lot of dirty work to clean them out and none of them ever really did a great job.  We eventually paid Paradise Now Ponds to install a natural looking pond with a low-maintenance filter and steep sides to keep the egrets and herons from dining at our pond.  I absolutely love the pond!

We hired a friend from church to install the sprinkler system.  No more standing in the yard with a garden hose!  If you don't have a sprinkler system, you might want to consider planting drought-tolerant plants.  We have one area on the other side of our driveway that is not irrigated.  The statice, sage, and aloe do just fine with neglect.  Everything else gets the water it needs without any consideration other than shutting off the system when rain is on the forecast.