Share Your Building & Gardening Projects L@^@K WHAT I DID!

Joined
Mar 12, 2010
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10,208
Location
Pacific N.W.
A thread where members can share their building & gardening projects. Big or small, successes and failures, let us have a L@^@K at what you've done.

My idea, so I'll start with this picture of a rose garden, bottom center. (I cropped it, but when uploaded, it reverted to the original size. I only have this one picture from up on the roof, so I didn't want to make the crop permanent.)

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I'd read that roses didn't do well in wet areas, so I built this raised bed for better drainage. It's 20' x 16' and with the amount of soil I removed with the former plantings, about ten inches deep. My dad asked me how I was going to get the new topsoil to the garden. I said: "I'm going to borrow your pickup, and back right up to it." He said: "How many loads do you think it'll take?" "Probably just three." He went over to his truck and retrieve a concrete calculator. Handing it to me he said: "Better check your figures." What figures? I adjusted the calculator....."Oh no! I need ten yards." OK, new plan. See that pile of topsoil at the top of the picture? It's between the two evergreens, about two hundred feet away! It was the only place I wanted a big pile of dirt so I had the dump-truck driver offload it there. I then used a garden cart to haul all ten yards to the HOLE. I was a lot younger then. Later I had more delivered since I was going to build the fence and remove access.

The rose garden was three years old when this picture was taken and it had become clear to me and my better half that I'd made a big mistake.
Anyone know what my mistake was? I'll give you a hint. The picture was taken just a little before noon.

Yep, as jabe1 posts below, they needed a bit more sun. It wasn't until much later in the summer that the sun was high enough to shine on the garden for more than four or five hours a day. After four years of disappointment, it was time to make a change.

Gardening is a journey, not a destination.

June 2008 Out came the roses.
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The River Garden begins. The first to be planted honors went to a Japanese maple, Omurayama.
We had been enjoying it on a patio, in a wooden box, for ten years. A lot of JM's do well in containers.

Stage 1. planning. Work Chance, work.
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Here's the lovely Mrs. Gardiner......trying to decide if she's pleased with the progress....note the hands on hips.
Not a good sign. I'm hiding in the house, drinking beer....my only weakness.
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The River Garden's first Fall. October 2008
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That's Japanese Blood Grass in the front.

Fall turns to Winter, and with it comes snow.
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December 2008

The New Year brings warmer weather and record rainfall.
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January 2009. Poor baby River Garden. Wondering what will survive???

This Katsura, Japanese maple is always the first tree to signal the beginning of Spring. At least on our property.
It was planted in 1994. Almost time to cut-back the grasses.
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April 2009

Spring and Summer have come and gone...my how time flies. Most of the garden is doing well and
the neighbor's cat has found a good hiding place. I love cats, but don't appreciate them hunting
birds on my property. Sad, but also part of the circle of life, wonderfully displayed in a garden.
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September 2009

Summer has come to an end. Autumn, my second favorite season, has arrived. By now I'm looking
forward to a rest from the gardening chores. The Blood Grass has filled in a little this Summer.
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October 2009

Finally, the Blood Grass ''River'' is starting to materialize.
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August 2010

As the days shorten, the shadows become longer. 17 months later.
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January 2012
Two weeks later, disaster! Once every ten years or so, The Pacific Northwest is hit by an ice storm. :awman:
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Helpless, you just wait...watching the ever-increasing load of ice bend everything under its weight....until the inevitable, ......sickening.... SNAP!
Immediately following is the sound of shattering ice, accompanied by the thud of dead branches hitting the snow covered ground. It's extremely loud, and when the storm comes at night, there's no-way you're going to get any sleep.
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So much for having a break from the yard. :sigh: It took me about three weeks to clean up the debris.

When Mother Nature goes about pruning,
her priority isn't aesthetics,
it's to break things at their weakest point.
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Here's the damage to the Katsura.
It's the large yellow tree in the next picture.

However, the rest of River Garden came away pretty much unscathed. :thumbsup: Four months later.
The pink, white, and green variegated tree in the right hand corner of the garden is a Ukigumo, aka Floating Clouds.
It's also a Japanese maple.
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May 2012

The most recent picture I have of the garden is where I used it as a backdrop for my bike. :)
It shows the height of the now mature Blood Grass.
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June 2012

So now you know why it's Chauncey Gardiner. Aka Chance the gardener.

~ Chance :cool:
 
Last edited:

raggie33

*the raggedier*
Joined
Aug 11, 2003
Messages
13,453
Re: Building & Gardening Projects L@^@K WHAT I DID!

i didnt do it but the lady across the street had tomatoes and hot peppers and some how they combined and made tomatpepper
 
Joined
Mar 12, 2010
Messages
10,208
Location
Pacific N.W.
Re: Building & Gardening Projects L@^@K WHAT I DID!

i didnt do it but the lady across the street had tomatoes and hot peppers and some how they combined and made tomatpepper

I hope she shared some of them with you. If so, how were they? If not, you could always go over and swipe one. Stolen fruit and veggies taste the best. My neighbors used to come over and swipe cherries from my tree. Then I'd go over and raid their corn patch. One day Jean looked out her kitchen window and saw the corn stalks waving back and forth. She came running with her video camera, yelling she'd caught me and to come out and show myself. I started barking pretending I was a dog. She was laughing so hard she almost dropped her camera. I exited the patch and took off across the lawn with four ears of the best tasting corn I've ever eaten.

~ Chance
 
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