This post is of a project we undertook in 2004 - in the Spring - for a great couple, Jeff and Denise, and their young red headed kids who were not even arguably cuter than buttons. They were a feature every day, the little guys, and who were, not surprisingly, fascinated by their daily Big Show out back of huge machinery and big fellows moving dirt and rocks all around.
(click on any picture to enlarge)
What 4 year old in his right mind would not dig (pardon the pun) this set up?? Huge and gnarly, all these humongous toys kept them entranced as long as they were awake. Below, for example, is what it looks like when you get 20 yards of topsoil delivered to your house just a few feet from your favorite back window!
This picture is us digging those tiny (not!) channels for irrigation pipes. Hey, you use what you have!
The Story
The home was pretty much Jeff and Denise’s “dream home”. After getting the inside of their place whipped into shape, they then focused outdoors, naturally enough. They had a full acre out back and they wanted to maximize what they could get out of it. They provided me with a laundry list of things they wanted which read something like this:
1.) A running water feature with a creek and small pond. 2.) A platform and an electrical (220V) supply near the water feature for setting up a spa away from the house. 3.) A nice big irrigated lawn with a surrounding pathway for the kids and their trikes and - eventually - bikes and motorized transportation. 4.)A horseshoe pit straight out the back. 5.) A play area for the kids. 6.) Some pathways on the rear hillside. 7.) An upper level patio, very informal, bedded in Decomposed Granite.
They were looking for ways to squeeze the budget which would still allow them to get all the goodies they wanted. The list was long and challenging but I immediately saw the potential in the overall landscape. We would take advantage hugely of the hillsides surrounding the East and Rear sides of the property, using it for our creek and the spa placement. Providing pathways would be easy and interesting and would cut through the landscape in a winding way. Jeff and Denise and I huddled and came up with a reasonable budget. Helpful - no that is an understatement - what swung the deal in favor of total possibility was that Jeff could provide all the machinery we would need. What also helped were his connections regarding trucking and rock suppliers - there being some excavations nearby that had the marvelous rocks you see throughout the property. That brought the budget down so far that suddenly it was all as doable as it could be. So we shook hands and took off on our grand landscaping experiment. It would be fun, especially inasmuch as Denise was at home with the boys and offered her opinions daily and in an unobtrusive and truly cooperative fashion. In the end, she has as much to do with the ultimate look as anyone. I consulted with her often, and as often at my request. She was always a treat, honestly.
Anyway, we began and, once we finished the irrigation issues, and after burying the pipes and backfilling them, we were ready to entertain deliveries of both rocks and soil, both in the 200 yard range as totals. So, here they came:
Once delivered, staging became an increasingly knotty problem. In the picture above you can see us placing rocks in their eventual resting places with the smaller excavator placing them and the larger one picking and separating them just after their arrival. They tended to come in 3 sizes, from humongous 2-3 ton slabs, to medium sized ones from 500-1,000 pounds, to smaller, one man sized rocks. It is actually somewhat tedious at this stage, in a way, although the placing of permanent fixtures is always bracing and challenging. You can never get bored with supplying something permanent for a client - the appearance and selection will be there for ever. Some heavy duty cosmetics here. So, anyway, things began taking some shape. In this picture, both the “upper level patio” and the horseshoe pit have been outlined in boulder placement.
Yes, there is still one huge pile of rocks down there. That is for some detail work as well as almost entirely dedicated to the water feature, which is being scratched out in the picture below. We typically excavate the channel which the water and all acoutrements will follow, then add the liner and, of course, the rocks defining it last.
And there you have your stabndard-average scooped out water course. Next, we make the water feature, starting at the top:
Adding rocks on top of liner is always the single most nerve-wracking part of any large job. One false move with that machine and the rock - and especially this type of “fractured rock” - can poke holes in the liner, the worst possible result. So we operate gingerly to say the least and we also use other pieces of the liner wedged between the new rocks and the liner to protect the all-important liner itself, providing a meausre of security as we worked.
The excavators we like using for these events are amazing tools. You act like a jeweller or watchsmith or something placing one and two-ton boulders as precisely as possible in place. Plus, you always get helpful advice, lol.
Looks like Chaos, don’t it?? ;-) Note also another wonderful development which is the very durable flexible pipe we use as the source. This one was a 4 inch pipe and made the project ten times more do able..
Now just add cement and we’re finally getting somewhere!
So that yields to this:
Next post, we add plants, grass and finish all the paths and stuff. I think you can see the madness all actually had some later-crystallizing plan to it. Thousands did not! Had to say it.
So - with the creek pretty much 80% done, we begin running the water to check the electrical and pump systems and to finish all the detail work in the crevases and in hiding the liner. We also run the water to clear it, of course. The first passes of water collect all the dust and grime from the initial construction phases- all the dust from feet and from spills and from the rocks themselves. Naturally, someone washes off the rocks as well at the same intial phase of the cleaning. We’ll leave it running for just a bit and then grab the end of the hose we saw inserted inside at the top for providing the initial flow and basically empty out all the water, completely, sending it somewhere that can take it all. We’ll refill it with the automatic fill apparatus we installed and work away elsewhere while it clears itself. We’ll repeat this step more than once, looking for that clear water.
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Here we can see the water’s still running pretty murky, as we will also see in a lower photo. About this time, generally speaking, we are ready - believe it or not - to start planting the plants and running lighting wire for the outdoor lighting system. You can see our ‘12-2′ low voltage lighting cable (above) which we ran to a light under that small falls there. Some wires were also sent through the creek, between the rocks and over to the other side for uplighting trees with.
We also began adding the decomposed granite which compacts well and which will provide the traffic surfaces for the horseshoe pit, seen below leading off from the upper patio area. As well, we are adding “D.G.” to the pathways on the upper hillside which we carved out. We are pretty much at the compacting stage at this juncture. We will pack them, then get them wet and they tend to crust over nicely. In time, they make a perfect bottom.
(Note the “creekebed” drain field above)
Time to start planting! Bear in mind, as exciting as this gets for me, I always see the future in what I put in the ground. Frankly, a newly-planted landscape can look pretty doggone barren when just finished, and especially one this large. I posted a picture below all this that shows us a look at this landscaping 3 years later. Suffice to say, you won’t believe the change. Yes, it is the same place.
OK, so on with the planting and the Green part of the gig:
It’s looking a bit more orderly out there now, don’t you think?
Hey! Here’s the sod! (below) The sod comes on pallets of about 550 square feet each, with about 65 rolls per pallet or so. We lay these suckers one at a time, just like a carpet. While it is an exceedingly reliable “plant”, the grass, since it occupies so much space, is a huge developmebnt towards finishing. It makes everyone’s day, honestly. Grass is the one finishing operation that really brings it all together and points the way downhill. There is much to be done yet, but there is something “final” about seeing the green grass outside after staring at dust and mud for a month or so.
Drainage Issue: It is a tedious chore, getting the grade just right, making sure rainwater and irrigation water all are directed away from the house to somewhere relevant that can conduct it then disperse it - in this home’s case - out to the front street, believe it or not. That’s a long way and we made small sorts of rock-filled creekbeds to do this with. These end up being an added feature, in the end, adding an aesthetic touch to a very functional consideration and neccesity.
Here, we are adding the final pieces, getting ready to trim the edges, roll it all down firmly, then give it its first dose of good watering. We will adjust the sprinklers perfectly at this time and set the clock for a test of it as well. Right now, Hugo is adjusting the radio, a constant need (!) while sodding as everyone must know! LOL, we had some good dance music going on for much of this, I remember. yYes, some of it was Mexican on demand, but I got my time in with some good R & B, too. Sam and Dave and James Brown can do alot for motivation!
Here’s a look from above. What a difference a day makes!
The two colors of the grass were merely different crops, cut at different times. I warned them of this possibility and that it meant zero, in the end. Inasmuch as the grass comes essentially fertilized, it takes about two-three days for the green to really start setting in.
Our remaining work is all “finishing” at this stage. I term applying the irrigation to all the plants as “finishing”, although classically, it’s still construction. But one thing we can get accomplished while setting up the drip irrigation lines and running the appropriately sized pipes and emitters to the trees and plants is that we bury the lines, then rake the dirt - in other words, we finish those areas. This project would not need mulching until some future date, owing to the expense - it was one of the ways we budgeted things - and it turned out delightfully. We were able to use a preemergent herbicide for the first two years and weeds just never got any purchase at all. Jeff and Denise were also able to add plants wherever they wanted quite a bit easier than by dealing with a mulch cover.
Here, below, Romero is adding the emitters to the “main line”, a 3/4″ drip line that he sends a bit of smaller pipe off of with an emitter which regulates the amount of water delivered to the plants roots per hour. The coiled pipe seen in the picture above is this 3/4″ pipe. It goes to every single plant on the property, run off a valve in a timed release. Drip irrigation is the single greatest achievement in landscape technolgy in my recent history. It applies the water exactly where it goes - to the roots - and does not evaporate in the air or cause wasteful watering which is endemic with spray systems. For those who wonder, that’s a Weeping Larch tree beside Romero there, a favorite plant of mine. The Larch is one of only two deciduous conifers in the world. They look amazing in the Spring, when they ‘re-needle’, in a soft green that gets greener. The weeping charactieristic I have always found terrific around water features. “Weepers” are a Steve characteristic.
We also did work on the upper paths, naturally, but in every respect relating to finishing, starting with the top - running the irrigation up there and then bringing it around, we were always working our way out.
Here’s the patio area. The grass is greening up as promised and the line is about to be buried.
Time for the all-impotant Road Testing” of the horseshoe pit. Jeff was not going to be easy to please, and especially with his Father-in-Law as competition. I gave them a break and didn’t compete with them. They got a break without knowing it, lucky stiffs.
He liked it! Well, we were just about finished. Please note the scrawny and tiny little plants all set there looking so lonely and forelorn. Then please look at the picture at the very bottom, 3 short years later.
Meanwhile, guess where our next project was!
Here you go, three years later! Different?
Here’s another look at the more mature place:
In the end, I stood next to Denise as I collected the final check and we had a moment to assess everything - the relations, the progress, the push and pull sometimes, all in respectful ways - and we shared one of the best moments I ever had as a contractor. We hugged briefly, and she spoke of all the guys she would miss (It’s an excellent, proud, professional and nice crew) and how the action would be so slow now for her hyped-up young red heads and how they’d miss seeing us. (It did take a full month to do.). I looked at her and I quietly asked: “Denise, do you like it?”
Denise started sobbing. “God, Steve, I l-l-l-ove it!” she said, tearfully. I looked at her and was just awed. I was dumbstruck, I swear. She was telling the truth and we had shared the deepst sort of history and warmth together in just that moment. I was embarrassed, because I had put a lot into it, myself, and I began tearing up a little myself. Honestly, who wouldn’t??
It was just the best dang thing I ever heard. I’ll cherish that one moment forever. Love you, Denise!
