Modern Landscape - Summer 2011 Progress

For almost every weekend since winter has past, we've been working hard to finish selecting plants for the enclosed concrete landscape beds along the front of our house.  Before we begin, have a look at where we started with beige 80's mania.  Lately, everything has started to fill in nicely, we are sitting back enjoying our new view(s) so it's time to share our progress.  On the left side approaching our house we have two tiered beds, and along the front we have one really long bed that gets varying levels of sun and shade which has made our plant selection tricky.

On the far left we have a full sun perennial garden and closer up the higher bed is half sun (angularly) and half shade.  We've always done well with a couple of annuals, the rest are perennials.   This bed is in almost full summer bloom and adds a nice splash of color against the front of the house.  

A close up of the mixed color.  Echinacea flowers in the rear add a natural screen wall to the far side of our house.  Up front are some summer phlox, veronica candles, different echinacea, and balloon flowers.  Behind the tall echinacea, we have our herb garden. 

Over in front of the concrete porch we poured a few years ago and adjacent to the newer walkway slabs we poured last spring is our other full sun perennial garden.  We've tried to mix a lot of color throughout the seasons to contrast against the gray color of the house.  Next year, this bed should be a slow fireworks display of color. 

On the other side of this bed is a totally different color array of flowers.  The long planting bed is made up of three different sections predicated on the quantity of sun each area receives.  We've tried to stick to only flowering perennial plants in this section. 

 

Looking straight at the full sun bed, there's a mix of agastache, echinacea, geranium, salvia, liatris, & shasta daisies. We are planning to add   allium bulbs to have some early spring blooms.

The middle section is full shade due to our thriving Magnolia tree. We've kept is simple here with impatients and some spiderwort clusters. Over time the spiderwort will take over a majority of this area hopefully.  It's a finicky plant, only blooms once a day in the morning for a short period.

On the far side is our almost full shade garden. Last year we had planted 5 azaleas to anchor this bed. Unfortunately, due to an accident by our roofers we lost two of them. We moved the remaining plants spacing the 3 survivors evenly and added some columbine, astilbe, and irish moss along the back side. The astilbe and columbine are spring bloomers and looked great when they were in bloom.

Walking pack along the paver path to the front door we added phlox down the entire length of the bed, previously we had only done half the length.  It now anchors the whole bed and is slowly growing over the edge of the wall.  This also flowers in early spring before almost anything else.  Behind the phlox is a row of shasta daisies.  

From our front door looking straight on the walkway.  We've prescribed to mostly geometric, linear arrangements, this bed is the anomaly, but it's a good thing.  We scored the large planter shortly after moving in the house at a DWR warehouse sale and have it stuffed full of cascading flowers.

Trying to catch a little color in front of the dark gray.  All this is the culmination of several years of work, we are glad to be at a point of completion.  You'll have to forgive all the kid toys in the photos, this is the way we roll most of the time with two young kids you have to keep it real.

A Bright Spot in Fall

The past few weeks, the temperatures have been dropping, so have a crapload of leaves. A few weeks ago, I finally got around to seeding the bare earth around the newest concrete work which has since produced a nice bright spot in all the fall dreary.

To integrate the new hardscape, I left space between the new pads to regrade against and plant grass to seamlessly tooth the landscape and concrete pads together. Considering the summer drought torched our lawn, this is the only actual 'green spot' of grass in our landscape.

Here's the view walking out the front door. After clearing the leaves a bit, the lines of green prevail. We're hoping next Spring to replace the remaining existing concrete walkway with similar bars of concrete to finish off the front of the house. Attempting to get the rest of the yard as newly green will also be on the agenda.

Mid Century Modern Curb Appeal - And The 'Crete' Goes On

I like to pour concrete, maybe one day we will pour some all the way out to the street. For now, in awaiting the new roof, I've been itching to work on some curb appeal outside. Alas while taking a week off last week, I impromtu decided to start throwing a sledgehammer at the existing walkway. Having complete two phases of concrete work on the porch and the landscape enclosure walls, I was thinking it was time to work on our patched walkway that leads to the house. Seeing as the sledge hammer wasn't doing much, I had to run and rent a jackhammer, a fun toy that can easily can get out of control.

In these first couple of photos, note the existing curvilinear walkway with a temporary patch we did to tide over the previous demolition. The plan was to infill the corner with four long walkway pads and also extend the lefthand planter enclosure. Eventually we will pour more stepped beds around the side of the house, the new extension will be right next to our property line.

A couple sweaty hours later, I had the existing walkway out to the next expansion joint. The design allows us to be able to keep the existing walkway and the existing expansion joint lined up almost perfect with the pavers in the grass. It was right about now, the crane truck with the roofing materials showed up for delivery.

While there was a ladder out I headed up to the roof to grab an aerial shot for a little perspective. Shadow was unavoidable.

My next step was to layout the overall outline for excavation and dig out the existing grass. Then I had to place 4" gravel fill and compact with a hand tamper. Using some of the demoed concrete and some already on hand gravel, everything worked out about perfect.

For forming up the concrete, I framed the outline of the pads using 2x6's so that the pads would be thicker and have a little more hefty presence. Using a double 2x6's in between the four pads, we'll eventually fill the gaps with dirt and plant grass. This will require some regrading down the road.

Moving on to the planting bed, the new wall enclosure steps down equally with the steps so they both are extensions on plane with one another. Using coated plywood and 2x4' I created a 6" wide and 18" deep wall form. As this was the end of the first day I didn't make it to bracing and fully leveling the frame. Not bad for a day's work.

The next morning I braced and leveled the wall forms, piled a ton of concrete chunks in and around the base. Then I piled all the soil I dug up from the front walkway pad excavation around the outside base of the formwork. My uncle Ed, the concrete finishing master, stopped by to help me out on the day of the pour. I use a Mini Mix truck company for the concrete, the smaller truck does less damage to the landscape. We started the pouring with the walls on the side.

Next we filled the pad formwork. It was a super hot day so we had to move quick. After filling the forms we had to manually tap the sides with hammers to help fill any voids, then we screeded the concrete level. We then floated a smooth finish, edged the sides, and finally Ed finished the concrete with a rubber float. Ed has done the same hand finish to all the concrete work we've done so it was best left to his artful hand.

A day's work done, the concrete bakes away into the evening sun.

Here's a good view of the side wall and all it's bracing glory. Didn't budge hardly at all during the pour, but it's suprising how powerful the concrete filling the forms can be.

Yesterday I pulled the formwork off both poured pieces and stored the formwork for future use. Here's a view from the neighbor's yard for a little perspective on the overall additions. Don't mind all that roofing material up on the roof.

Another final view of the approach. Next we'll get to work on the grass seed and grading with some fresh topsoil. First, we'll let the roofers make a big happy mess.