Back in June, we had a lot of trees removed in preparation for moving back the "wall" to provide more yard space. We had a "stump forest" remaining because one of the landscapers we were considering thought it best to leave stumps that a bobcat could pull out along with its root-balls, making a better area for landscaping.
Well, it all finally happened at the end of September. The stumps and root balls were removed; the old wall was torn down; the yard was re-graded; the new wall was built; and new sod went in...
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This is where things were left after June's tree removal work. Since then I'd taken down a couple more smaller trees myself, but this is pretty much where the landscaper started out. We used Shady Grove Landscape Company. They were great to work with. | |
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For the first day, they brought in a bigger Bobcat to pull the stumps & root balls out. As it turns out, this landscaper dug under them to get them out, not try to rip them out using the stumps. So, we could have had them cut lower after all...and it probably would have made these guys' jobs a little easier. | |
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Getting started by pulling down the old wall and pulling out the azaleas. | |
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Digging further in to where the new wall will go. | |
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More tearing stuff up. Click here for a short video of them pulling out the trunks/root-balls. |
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Here are just a couple of the huge root balls they pulled out. The larges one was 6'+ in diameter (on its side, taller than me). | |
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More root balls. | |
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The wall construction begins! The stone we chose is Belgard's "Celtik Wall" system. It's not all that much more expensive than the stuff Home Depot sells and looks a zillion times better, and it was a lot less than going with real granite. | |
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The wall, mostly in, sans the steps. | |
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The right side of the wall showing how it is curved. (They didn't finish the left side until the very end so they had room to get equipment up and down.) | |
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These are what the blocks look like up close. It actually looked pretty simple to put up...once you had a solid and level base layer in on top of compacted gravel.... | |
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Same spot at another angle. Also, a closer look at Belgard's "Celtik Wall" blocks. | |
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The completed wall (I couldn't fit it all in from the
ground). No, the steps are not centered. They're basically located where they were before, which is a nice line of site from the window by the breakfast area. Because the wall area now effectively extends further to the right (since there isn't a wide bed at the right anymore), this put them off center, but Cheryl wanted them there so they could be the focal point from the window. From that vantage point, they also line up between two trees at the back of the property. (This picture was taken from the kitchen sink window to get as much of the all in the picture as possible, so they're not quite being seen from Cheryl's desired angle.) |
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Finishing up the final grade of the yard. | |
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Next came the sod. We had Tall Fescue, but now have Emerald Zoysia, which should do better in the sun that we now have with the fewer trees. It's also pretty shade tolerant and should take foot traffic (Natalie's some day) a bit better, too. | |
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Here, we've added most of the plants. This Cheryl and I did ourselves (mostly Cheryl since she's the one that knows plants -- I'm just the labor) and I also transplanted a small Oak and small Dogwood that were further back under the shade of the remaining pines. This also shows the drip irrigation line I put in, as well as the new black vinyl chain-link fence. | |
 Left side of yard. |
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 Right side of yard |
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Left and right sides of wall, taken from a second story window. |
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This may be a little better picture of the center with the sun at a different angle. (This time of the year, there's no good time to get a picture of the back yard. | |
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After |
| Wrapping it up is are before and after pictures. The "before" picture is actually from when we moved in 3 years ago. It looked even worse this past spring because the wood railroad tie wall and steps were very deteriorated, but I didn't get any pictures of it in full-width as a good comparison to the "after" picture...so this "before" will have to do. | |
