Fewer Weeds Means Less Work!

Jorg has been working pretty hard with Scott on lots of projects around the house to pay us back for his computer. He's helped us with painting, cleaning, truck repairs, yard work, and other little things around the house. His birthday is this week, so I knocked four hours off his debt.

This past weekend the giant project (that took eight hours!) was filling in the flower bed in the front yard. We had hated it before because although there were some very pretty flowers for about two weeks in the spring, the rest of the year it was just greenery that either just...sat there...or wilted. Either way, it wasn't pretty. Also, it was covered in wood chips (fugly), and weeds would grow like crazy. It was a lot of maintenance for very little aesthetic value, so it had to go!

First up, Scott and Jorg pulled out all the weeds, plants, and wood chips. Then, they needed to dig up all the bulbs and pull out any big rocks, so they dug up and sifted all the dirt about eight inches deep. Scott built this nifty little sifter tool thingy for the task.

I was sick this past weekend, so on Saturday I was feeling well enough to go outside, as long as I was just sitting. So I sat on the front porch and got a little sun and fresh air while they worked, and I kept them sunscreened and hydrated. So at least I contributed. But in the middle I got really tired, so I went inside to take a nap. When I woke up, they were all done sifting and were smoothing the dirt down.

Next up they put a weed blocker (a fabric/plastic sheet) over the leveled dirt. Over it we wanted to put a bed of nice, medium-sized rocks, which, it turns out, look infinitely better than crappy wood chips!

We went to Home Depot and got to use the truck to haul the rocks! We bought about a ton of them (and I do mean a ton, as in 2000 pounds). It took two trips in the truck to bring them all home, and the people at Home Depot had to load them for us with a forklift! That was lots of fun, actually.

In the end, this was the result:

I know it looks like there's a lot of dirt in there, but as it rains it will wash out and leave just the stones.

The plan now is to find some really lovely ceramic pots and place a few potted plants (probably flowers or something with colorful leaves) over the rocks. It'll be neater, cleaner, and a lot easier to take care of. Scott is pretty sure that weeds won't grow at all.

And the best part is, nobody got a sunburn!