What a difference a day makes! It really does look like we have a whole new yard.

Yesterday morning began with the arrival of a tri-axel filled with Smithfield Peat’s finest screened loam/compost mix. Impressive. The Savages broke out the big guns…

7:30 am, Adam starts with a little more grading out back with the mini excavator…

You can hardly even tell the water collection tank is there. Well, except for the giant manhole covers and the filter, of course. We’ll remove one of those covers and screen it all with plants soon enough…

For future reference, David marked down where the overflow piping and other underground bits of the system are hiding. Probably a good idea…

The veggie zone got raked out…

… then the loam was brought in and spread with the bobcat. So rich, it looks like brownie mix…

Our plants are going to be soooo spoiled…

Rich and Mr. Savage perfected the grade out back so that water would flow away from the house and down the slope…

Then it was ready for loam…

Which  Adam had spread in no time…

Ever since we moved in, I’ve been looking forward to finding a new home for five fairly young rhododendrons. The last owner must have put them in hoping to add privacy to the downstairs patio area… which is ridiculous for several reasons. One: those suckers take forever to grow, so there wouldn’t be privacy screening for at least another decade. And Two: they planted them practically on top of each other and way too close to the pathway — hard to believe looking at them now, but these will be monsters when they finally reach 12′ tall and 12′ across…

So Mr. Savage dug them up for Rich to take home with him. Plant them and love them, Story!

Mr. Savage added a little soil and smoothed out the eroded slope along the road…

… the entire 100′ foot length of it. Wow, that looks incredible!

Then Rich and Shiva dug a shallow trench along the top of the slope where the biodegradable Curlex erosion control matting will be secured…

That was a lot of digging…

Then the two of them rolled the Curlex down the slope…

… and secured it with our natural, biodegradable staples at the top and bottom.

Up the hill, down the hill, up the hill… and so on. Thanks, Rich!

By late afternoon, the slope was completely transformed. The Curlex won’t break down for three years, which is plenty of time for plants to get established. Speaking of which, the plants arrive this Tuesday…

Meanwhile, David made a trip to Sylvan Nursery in Westport, MA, to pick up our focal point tree for the backyard…

Doesn’t look like much in the truck…

After months of deliberation, I finally settled on a Betula nigra Cully Heritage River Birch. Yes, I considered many other gorgeous options — Perrotia Persica (Persian Ironwood),  Stewartia Pseudocamillia (Japanese Stewartia), Fagus Sylvatica Tortuosa (Tortuous European Beech) and Cercidiphyllum Japonicium (Katsura or Caramel Tree), were top contenders. But the size and multi-trunked habit of the Heritage Birch was just right. I’ve been stalking just such a tree in a neighborhood where I run. This is what it looked last last summer…

The peeling bark is really something…

So with the help of Adam in the bobcat, Shiva, David and Rich got the tree up the slope…

… and hoisted it into the hole..

And, voila! Landscaping has officially begun. Thanks to Shiva and Ellen for making the tree-sleuthing trip to Sylvan last week to find the perfect specimen for us. It’s gawgeous!

Birches grow quickly, so this should fill out nicely in no time. Will look lovely from the living area…

Thank you so much Savages. You rawk!

Tags: garden, green, landscaping, neighbors, plants, rainwater collection, sustainable

This entry was posted on Sunday, April 4th, 2010 at 8:46 am and is filed under garden, plants. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.