I feel like a human gopher!
All this digging in the yard!!
just one of many excavation projects at the old homestead
I finally found out where the old electrical wires and water pipe went into the cabana – now all I have to do is get my plumber and electrician out here to reconnect them (and of course I have to dig another trench to the garage for running the new wires — more digging!)
and BTW, isn’t Dolly’s little butt cute?
Thanks, everyone who commented on how nice my yard looks, and on my bamboo grove – but the photo in the last entry was just a computer rendering of how it will look when it is done and has some time to grow.
Right now, I am still preparing the bed for the bamboo. I don’t even have the plants yet — they are coming from Oregon!
First I had to dig out all the sod, clay, old roots and rocks where the bamboo will be planted. It likes moisture, but doesn’t like standing in water, so it needs good drainage (which you don’t get in heavy clay soil). It also doesn’t like growing in rocky soil. When my dad filled in the old swimming pool out here, he used truckloads of nasty rocky heavy fill dirt, and no topsoil. Although the back yard looks quite green, (inside the fence — the rest is my neighbor’s yard) it is really just a bunch of weeds trying to grow through rocks, not actually a lawn at all. So here is the hole I am digging for the bamboo grove.
I got most of the roots and rocks out – and it is dug almost deep enough in this picture. That’s my shovel sticking up in the dirt — so you can get an idea how big the hole is in comparison. (about 15′X10′, and 2′ deep)
this is the pile of mostly clay and rocks, I dug out. There is a contraption leaning on the compost bin behind the dirt pile — it is a screen I built for sifting the rocksand roots and other debris out and loosening up the clay before returning it to the hole.
The next step (I actually started on it today after taking these photos, and before it began to rain and I quit) is installing a rhizome barrier all around the edge of the hole so the bamboo won’t spread all over the yard, and will keep its shoots fairly close together for a better screen. The type of bamboo that is hardy in this climate is a running type, which spreads via shoots coming up from underground rhizomes. The rhizomes will keep growing until they hit an obstacle, and then they will turn.
The concrete patio blocks stacked next to the hole are the basis of my rhizome barrier. I am standing them on end around the inside of the hole, and then lining the inside edge with some 12 gauge vinyl I bought off a roll at the local fabric store. The bamboo nurseries sell a thick plastic rhizome barrier that is 30 inches wide, but it is more expensive than this method, and requires digging down twice as deep. I am hoping the bamboo will be discouraged from spreading by the heavy clay soil I am not breaking up in the bottom of the bed, andthe rhizomes will remain relatively close to the surface where the softer soil is.
Once I get the concrete blocks set in, and the vinyl liner inside that, I will sift the soil I took out, blend it with peat moss and humus, and replace it in the hole. it will then be ready for planting the bamboo plants. I have chosen to use several different varieties of bamboo for visual interest, and will be planting a total of 10 plants in this space. Then a thick layer of mulch goes over the top, and all I have left to do is water, water, water and wait, wait, wait. Hopefully it will like its new home and start to spread and fill in a bit during the first growing season. But I have been warned that it usually doesn’t start looking really good until the end ofthe second season, or even the third.
Gardening is an exercise in patience.
Even planting bamboo — the fastest growing plant on the planet — I still have to wait months, years even, to get results.
Well, anyway, I quit for the day when I got rained on. Much easier to work in dirt than mud. I ran out of cement blocks anyway. I am not sure that I want to go to Home Depot and wrestle another 3 dozen oftheminto the truck, plus humus and peatmoss. Bernie is at a Union meeting tonight, and I think I will wait until another night when he can help me load them up.
I am sure I can find something to do in another part of the yard tomorrow.
Like hang up the hammock that just came in the mail today and take a good long nap!
Here are my two little helpers — they are standing between my hammock posts. The dirt is all dig up there, partly because I was looking for those wires and pipes, and partly because I am working on re-grading the back yard, which is all full of hills and holes from my dad and his buddy doing such a lovely job filling in the pool after having entirely too many shots and beers one day about fifteen years ago. The back yard has been a mess ever since.
Dolly (left) and Pearl (right) in their summer haircuts
I have gotten this little corner pretty well smoothed out, and even planted some new grass along the edge of it. The rest of this spot, which will be under my hammock, is going to be covered in mulch or wood chips so I don’t have to mow it. But first I have to dig a trench through it and get the new wires run so we can have lights in the cabana again. There are two flood lights on the outside, too, which makes it really nice to have the yard lit up if weare out there after dark. Before I can have the electrician in to run the wires, I have to have the other contractor in to remove the old cracked and crumbling concrete patio and walk, and work on the drainage on the other end ofthe yard. Hopefully he can do something withthe drainagethat will help keep the water out of our basement. The electric wires will go in a shallower trench over where the drain pipes will be.
Every job we start around here seems to require 3 or 4 other things to be done before or in conjunction with the task at hand.
Such is the nature of old houses, I suppose.
And here is another picture of my little furballs with their summer haircuts – they look so cute in their underwear!
I have an old enamel baby bathtub that I keep filled with water in the yard. The dogs like to stand in it and cool off when it is really hot out. It is just deep enough to barely come up to their bellies. On the left side of this photo is another part of the regrading project — where I am building up the soil next to the house where it had settled over the years, and the rain water was running toward the foundation rather than away from it. I am using dirt I have been digging out of other (high) parts of the yard to build up low spots.
a cool wading pool for the little fuzzy dogs
One day I decided to do something that would give Bernie a good laugh when he came home after a long hot day at work – so I added some sand around the dogs’ “pool” and put up a little sign — I even spread out a striped beach towel on the grass next to it.
the sign says “Welcome to Pom Beach”
And it did the trick — “daddy” laughed when he came home!
(or I was rubbing off on him)
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