With so many little plants waiting for a new home, I decided I needed another new bed! But after last year's two-day hand digging adventure, I took Karen's advice and ordered up a sod cutter and tiller from Diamond Lake Rental. I roped Rebecca in as spotter/supervisor. The delivery guy, whose name I didn't get, let's call him "Joe," arrived promptly at 10 AM, but there was a problem. While my rental was for two hours, they needed to use the delivery truck on another job in around 45 minutes. With Rebecca still 15 minutes away, there was no way I was going to get the job done that quickly myself. Luckily, "Joe" said they decided back at the shop he would just bang out the "small job" for me at no additional charge! Woo-hoo!
While Karen said the sod cutter was not that hard to use once you got it started, the task looked quite a bit harder than I expected. "Joe" said tight turns are difficult to maneuver with the cutter, but he really did a good job, the circle and the curves came out very nice. Rebecca said we probably would not have been able to get such neat lines. After he cut the sod he was running short of time so we decided to just till the phase one section in the middle. That was the idea, but with time "Joe" couldn't get the tiller to dig in the hard soil. He didn't have time to mess with it and said he'd take the tiller of the bill. He recommended we water the area some, break it up with my "Garden Claw" and call them back to get the tiller. I gave "Joe" $25 for his hard work. Check out the video of a professional at work with the cutter.
Here's the "small job" area before (panoramas made with PTgui):
The area around the table and bench will be step-able ground covers, primarily creeping thyme, and mulch. I'll remove the stone pavers from the bed under the windows and re arrange the plants there. I don't want to put all the new plants in the new bed. I'll move and split things from the exiting beds-- some Karl Foerster grasses, Lady's Mantle, Heuchera 'Palace Purple', Siberian Iris and Moonbeam Coreopsis.
It in right side circle, I want a small tree with multi-season interest. I am leaning toward a tree-form 'Autumn Brilliance' Serviceberry which has Spring flowers, Summer berries and colorful Fall leaves.
Before all the planting starts, I need to kill and remove the remaining grass and weeds around the table and get a layer of Preen down before the new weeds get going. Good thing its a long weekend! Then there's the 55 feet of edging to pin down. I'll save that job for when my dad comes to visit in a few weeks. He can help me plant the tree as well.
1 comments:
Ely Observer said... May 29, 2010 at 8:29 PM
Effort!!
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