The plan had to be rethought the moment the boulders arrived. Turns out, the word ‘boulder’ means something quite different to landscapers than it does to me and Jay. We envisioned big rocks, about the size of a sofa cushion. The truck that arrived at our front door was carrying five rocks the size of Volkswagen Beetles. One of them, broken into five pieces, still would have been bigger than we had in mind. This is why it’s best to do things face to face and not over the phone. The fella with the truck was very nice but when Jay said he wanted smaller boulders and demonstrated the size he had in mind, the guy said “those are pebbles.”
Anyway, the hydraulic arm on the truck didn’t fit beneath the power lines that run in front of our house (about 20’ above the sidewalk), so even if we’d wanted rocks the size of elephants, we couldn’t have them.
Everyone parted on good terms, the truck carrying six two ton boulders returning whence it came, burden intact.
But we had landscapers coming the next morning to dig holes and do the planting and we had no rocks and no plants.
So, plan B had to be worked out in a hurry.
Plan B: no rocks just shrubs.
Yeah, it was really that easy. Not like we had much choice; we were out of time.
Jay had found a guy on Craig’s List who was selling hostas. We bought enough to fill our boulevard, which for some reason has refused to grow any grass since Trump was elected. Then we went to Home Depot and a neighborhood nursery and chose 30 plants that fit our needs. We know very little about plants but knew we needed hardy shrubs that like tons of sunshine and will spread out instead of grow up. We pretty much picked whatever looked pretty.
In the end, we had:
4 green spreading junipers,
3 blue spreading junipers
4 boxwoods
3 chartreuse spirea
3 golden orange spirea
3 lavender
3 tickwood flowers
3 spreading flox (bright pink and two shades of purple)
1 amber jubilee ninebark
1 Ruby barberry
1 other pretty little thing with maroon leaves.
Our front yard is going to be as colorful as a circus.
We also bought two tall, red, ornamental grasses for the back yard.
In the course of our travels we discovered that fake boulders are a thing. Who knew?? They’re expensive, though. We didn’t get any.
Friday morning, the landscapers arrived and did the hard work of ripping out what was left of the grass on the hill. That probably took them all of ten minutes. There really wasn’t much grass on that hill, which is why we’re landscaping it. For the last two years, it has looked like the lawn equivalent of a chemo patient. Jay hated mowing it, so whatever killed the grass has just done him the favor of an excuse to go no-maintenance.
I returned from painting at the Arboretum to find the hill completely covered in black lawn fabric. It looked 100% better already! There was also an enormous pile of mulch in the driveway so I had to park on the street.
This is when I was told that nothing more would be done until I told the landscapers where to put everything.
I had no idea.
The two young men went off for lunch and I took the stats of each plant and ran upstairs and got to work.
Designing with plants is hard. I’m used to designing with space, color and use in mind. This time, I had to consider space, color, growth and height. It took about an hour but I came up with a design that I think will look good. I hope it will. It looks greatin my head.
With my scale drawing in hand, I directed the two pros as to where to put the stakes to dig their holes. This lasted about five minutes. Then I told them to go back to work on the boulevard (they were planting the hostas) and I’d place the stakes myself. I had my drawing, a fistful of stakes and my tape measure in hand. The spreading juniper should get to be 5 or 6 feet across, so I had to give them plenty of room to grow and make sure none of the spirea I wanted near them would end up underthem. At first, I had things too close together, so I had to move the stakes around a few times to fill the whole hill but by the time the guys had all the hosta planted, I’d staked things out the way I wanted them. One of the guys had given me the idea to place each pot by the stakes so all they had to do was dig the requisite hole and plant the shrub where I’d directed.
I was a sweaty mess by the time I’d finished staking that hill out. It took them five hours to get the plants in the ground and all the mulch spread but the hill looked fabulous by the time they finished. As Jay said, it no longer looks like we don’t give a damn about our lawn.
The only problem now is that the front yard itself, at the top of the hill, is still a mess. Our beautiful, colorful Adirondack chairs are set in the midst of a once lovely lawn that now looks like a firefight was waged there. Again, I don’t know what happened to our lawn during the winter of ’18 but it wrecked all the grass and nothing Jay did last year to improve it worked. I actually wouldn’t mind turning the entire front yard into a flagstone patio but I don’t think we can afford that.
It would look really cool, though.
Saturday afternoon, I headed south to Ty’s house. Megan, Kitten and I planned on going to some garage sales. In the end, we only hit one but we hit the jackpot! Megan got a bouncy chair for Kitten when she’s big enough and a bagful of clothes and shoes for her as well. By the time we’d picked through everything, we were out of money and had no more need for anything so we went back to the house.
The plan was to go out for dinner at a local joint where Megan’s cousin would be performing that evening. I was to take the kids home after a few numbers so Megan and Ty could stay and dance without having to keep the kids up all night.
We had a few hours between garage sales and dinner, so I’d brought my paints along with me. I’d spent the day before painting crabapple trees at the Arboretum and wanted to have another go; Megan and Ty have five crab apple and apple trees on their property, all of which are currently in full bloom. Gorgeous!
This spring weather has contined to be fickle and unpredictable. It was hot the days we spent hunting down plants for the front hill but by Saturday, it was cold, wet and blustery. It was 80 a few days ago and it may get down to freezing tonight. Don’t tell me ‘climate change’; Frank Pivec always used to warn never to plant your flowers before Memorial Day if you didn’t want them to freeze and that was long before environmentalists discovered there was big money in hysterical doomsday predictions.
I chose the best looking tree and picked out the view I liked. It was nasty outside but I wasn’t too worried: I’d dressed appropriately. I tried to set up so that the house blocked the wind. In the end, I had to choose between a wind break and the view I liked best. I chose the view and spent the next two hours regretting that choice. The wind, which had been a slight, gusting breeze when I set up, soon turned into a relentless gale, determined to pick up my easel and blow it to Oz. Where’s Global Warming when I need it??
I was halfway through my battle with the wind, painting and cussing in equal measure, when Ty and the kids come home. Babalouie came running out to join me. I told him he had to go back in the house and put a jacket on before he froze to death. Pretty soon, both he and Xena were playing around me, telling me all about their day, while I tried really hard not to scream F-bombs at the stupid wind as it continued to make painting as difficult as possible.
I was trying to paint with my right hand while holding my easel and palette in my left. It was so uncomfortable that I began getting cramps in my hip and back but every time I let go of the easel, the damn wind tried to throw it in my face.
I can honestly say it’s the first time I ever didn’t enjoy painting outside.
But the painting actually turned out pretty good. I’ve got a few details I need to punch up but overall, I like it.
Dinner was fun! Kitten behaved like she was born to eat out and Xena and Babalouie quickly made friends with the entire crowd. The music was great and there was much singing and dancing going on.
Megan dropped me and the kids off at the house around 10, then she went back to the party while I got the kids to bed.
It was late and they were tired, so that was easy. After brushing their teeth and saying their prayers, I didn’t hear a peep out of either of them. Kitten and I sat in the big recliner in the living room and I read my book to her. She either really likes the sound of my voice or she’s totally into Daniel Silva. Either way, she was very happy as long as I kept reading. Eventually, we both dozed off and that’s where we were when Megan came back home around 11:30. She’d come home to feed Kitten but left Tyler to get a ride home with buddies, as they were all having way too much fun together.
I have no idea what time Ty got to bed last night but he got no sympathy from any of us this morning. We all went to Mass together, then Megan made a huge brunch for us all. Ty kept trying to sneak away with Kitten to take a nap but we kept hauling him back in to set the table, change the baby, eat and clean up. I think he finally got to take a nap around 12:30. I got a nice long snuggle in with Kitten before packing up my stuff and heading home. It rained all the way back to Minneapolis.
The best thing about lousy weather is it makes it easy to get some work done. I spent most of the afternoon designing a big pillow that looks like a Parcheesi board. I got it mostly painted before Jay made us dinner.
It’s been a busy few days. We got a lot done!