(click all pictures to enlarge)
This group of nuts is enjoying themselves while their poor hard-working landscapers continue flailing away in the efforts to make them this happy year-round. There were always kids around us during this project and the truth is they made it more fun. Likable and almost always helpful, at worst they did their damage at night after we had left. We knew what we were heading into, however, since most of the guys working with me had kids of their own, as did I. Let me say right now, kids rock. As long as we don’t crush any, they can play along any time. A definite kid-friendly crew there.
This project is stuck back in the Ponderosa Pines along the route between Reno and Lake Tahoe, an upscale neighborhood tucked back into the hills. Relaxed and pretty friendly – with some notable exceptions – the ‘hood was home to bank managers and contractors, architects and doctors who seemingly “arrived” with places like these. At least, that was our purpose as the landscapers – to give a dream home some fleshed-out sensibility. It was a high-budget effort for a contractor who had done very well indeed.
While the above picture shows things upon opening it up – it was the first day of swimming – those below here give a better illustration of what we encountered when the pool work itself was almost complete – done by others – and when we began our own work in more earnest.
We also had an element complicating matters which showed up at the worst time, lol:
Life at 7,000 feet above sea level! It could snow almost any time, particularly in Spring. The fact was, in Fall, you waited until the first one, then went back to town and forgot about the area for 5 months, barring an unseasonable Winter. Summers, gratefully, the weather could be 5-10 degrees cooler than a hot Reno, Nevada where folks were dealing with 100 degree weather. Add the shade and you have the perfect mid year project.
We had helped at various stages to get the the pool underway, including the initial excavations, using a monster excavator or two. This sucker was going to be 11′ deep at the deep end, owing to the extreme possibility that the “Tree House” being erected would get someone diving in from virtually ‘high dive’ climes.
Looking closely, boulders can been seen strewn around the upper edges of the swimming pool. These were not ‘afterthoughts’ whatsoever. They were obviously always in the plan but they reqired more than just your average “Plop a rock in place” effort. These babies are cemented in place to prevent eventual cracking of the pool by weight and settling. Not only that, but we attached substantial angle iron braces to the boulders themselves as a sort of “staking”, to embed them in the native soil. The ground underneath was compacted thoroughly prior even to that. Thus we had the boulders which were penetrated and secured to the thick angle iron bracing, then set in cement. All this was done prior to the acceptance of the soils by the swimming pool contractor upon commencing his own work. Here’s a reasonable picture of one or two of the granite boulders, weighing in at about 5 tons. The big one there was the largest, weighing in at about 5 tons. This is not your every day pebble!
I’ll continue this next time. This, much like the Chinese Garden in Portland, Oregon, remains one of the most challenging and fascinating projects I ever worked on.
We had always been around during the construction of the pool, The pool-makers would call and ask for back filling, once things became settled in the ground itself. We paid a lot of attention to the future and the last foot or so of back-filling was devoted to putting in gravel and base material. With the budget we had, this place will outlast the house by a century or so. It could well be one of the most compacted surfaces I ever installed. I am positive it is in the 99 percentile of compaction.
So we began installing pavers around the pool. We attended to drainage issues and found it necessary to install the drain shown protruding in the picture above. The pavers we used were Belgarde’s “Bergerac” Pavers, an expensive but gorgeously-antiqued model, set in a random pattern. They were also an additional inch thick! These big beauties came in at 3 1/4″ thick, providing a huge challenge for not only our cutting apparatii (gas-powered table saw with a diamond blade) but also requiring substantial grinding for the wild number of curves. Talk about labor intensive!
Obviously, we had other issues, such as a fire pit shown in the bottom picture. The necessity to hand-shape curving pavers was especially intense when around boulders, as can be seen above. The irregularities don’t seem so drastic when the boulders first get placed. But, wow, they get intense when the finishing starts.
I am thinking the project lasted almost 2 months. There was a lot going on in general – a water feature which was designed to appear to be supply the pool water from the front yard and a 130 foot creek, originating at a waterfall out front. We tried to make the area behind the falls by the spa appear to be a bridge just to enhance this idea. 
At any rate, it was intense but as we neared completion and began planting, we started to see things coming together nicely.
Typical of this blog, owing to my usual tendency to take multitudinous pictures ‘in progress’, I am having some trouble finding the final pictures taken of this pool project. I often take pictures for legal and educational reasons, the truth is. I like proving the work was done appropriately. It has less to do with suspicious motives or anything else, although in the event of contestations, the record is right there. I just feel the clients feel better served knowing some of the history put into what they see. It also serves me extremely well in this blog because people can get a much better sense of what actually goes into a landscaping project. When I tell clients to “Expect Beirut”, lol, I need a reason. I do indeed mention that landscaping is just about 80% preparation and 20% finishing. That’s the God’s truth, the fact is.
The picture above has to do for now. It being wet illustrates the overall look when we finally put a bright sealer on top of the pavers, giving it a permanent “wet look”.
A little more perspective along the side:
When I find (grrrrrrr) the others, I will update this. It looked fabulous, planted and sealed. I guess you’ll have to take my word for it. There was a party opening it officially to the neighborhood, friends and family which was a challenge to survive. I made it and slept over that night, lol.
The Webster’s Dictionary definition of a “Pest” is:
1: pest: something resembling a pest in destructiveness ; especially : a plant or animal detrimental to humans or human concerns (as agriculture or livestock production)
2: one that pesters or annoys
I have no problem locating garden and landscape application for both these definitions. In fact, I can and will elaborate. I just hope I don’t lose my head and get all inappropriate. Bugs and critters…….bugs and critters, sigh. These are the true banes of landscaping and gardening.
The mosquito is probably the world King of Pests. It is estimated to infect 700 million people a year, often with Malaria but equally often by infecting with parasites either attached to their bodies or from redistribution among humans. Luckily for me, I have lived in the North West US where they are not the plague they can be in the American South or, say on other continents. But I have definitely had my bouts with “skeeters”.
Aphids, meanwhile, are a species of bug I sure know well. It’s stunning how quickly they can envelop an entire tree, eating and curling and misshaping the leaves, leaving a “honeydew” mist of sticky stuff. Ugh. In Reno, ants are a plague. I am also talking “fire ants”, miserable little suckers that bite. It hurts, too! Mites, slugs, wasps, mud dobbers, bees, spiders……….what a Rogue’s gallery of insects and pests, all of whom I have had to deal with at one time or another. And when you get rid of them, they come back, lol. It’s almost like we moved into their territory.
But wait! We did!
Above all the various ‘pests’, critters are the ones whose territory we invaded most. Heck, for the insects, we’re pretty much just a food source in one way or another. But mice, squirrels, raccoons, gophers, moles, voles – all these characters once lived where we just moved to. In Lake Tahoe, it gets worse. Bears and cougars, anyone?
The Vole – Cute and naughty
I once built this gorgeous water feature, all special with this series of cascading waterfalls, connected by a creek, all lit at night and really, one of the best waterfall systems I ever made. But the owner called numerous times, complaining of leaks. Obviously, we had to address it. As we uncovered the liner below, we found tons of small holes – really tiny – in all sorts of different places. As we relined these areas, the calls continued and we found new holes in new spots, all the same. When we pulled the liner up this time, we noticed a system of holes leading into the liner area. They looked like “mole holes”, basically. What I found out from inquiring of an older gent with his own deep landscaping history was that this was undoubtedly the work of “voles”. He even described the entire episode before I did.
“Yep,” he smiled, “they like the taste of EPDM liner. They think it’s salt.”
Needless to say, we fixed it all but it required putting a barrier of a thick filtercloth under the liner, something we never failed to do following that. It was the type of lesson we’re always learning.
Obviously, I have faced all these dilemmas and more, thus my obvious distaste for the lot of them. But they aren’t going away.
How do I deal with them?
Many times it depends on the timing and the identification. If we can catch an aphid infestation early enough, we can remedy it with insecticidal soaps. No harm, no foul, a non toxic and pretty clean way of dealing. The soaps tend to stick around a while in somewhere like Reno, with so little rainfall. But other times, we face a true uphill battle, one that is too much for someone with my small capacity and time to deal with. I generally call in an expert like someone from Terminix. These guys do this every day and they come when asked, and absolutely promptly. That’s huge for a contractor, especially when I am holding a client’s or former client’s hand while they worry about their place. In fact, Terminix did more than just a little for me and a slew of my contracting friends in both Reno and Portland. I actually discovered them in Santa Cruz, California originally, because the area has such an incredibly bad termite problem. Man, how many houses have I seen with all that blue tarp completely covering them?
We actually discovered termites at more than one place, from the out of doors. It turns out if they are found in the wood structures surrounding the house, there is an excellent chance they will be in or under the home as well. When I faced termites, I always made the call – and I do mean always. These guys can eat through a house in short order. Mentioning the discovery to a homeowner was never pleasant owing to the implications and the threat to the value and the home itself. It would always result in calls to a pest control agency – really, the only folks who can effectively deal with real and serious infestations.
With “critters”, now, we reach a whole other plane of misery. Raccoons have set up shop in the crawl spaces of homes, bearing kids, living life cycles all without the knowledge of the homeowners above. It is, of course, the same with all the animals subject to nocturnal habits and who exist outside our purview in general. I won’t even mention the skunk our dog encountered in Santa Cruz and the events that had me cleaning the house, deck and my truck with literal gallons of tomato juice to get rid of a smell that sickens me to this day.
We tend to try and trap them, usually. But that’s when we are close by or working there. Once again, when there is a plague of rodents and small animals, I like to call someone in. Yep, I call the same dudes, Terminix, simply because they have solved these problems for me successfully. Rodent control, for me, is just wishful thinking and I fully realize that.
Then we get to areas that abut Nature in a bigger way. Deer, for example, love flowers. The ever-cute bunny rabbit I sometimes want to play a successful Elmer Fudd on! They eat some plants right down to the nub – and it happens overnight! We use as many critter-aversive solutions as we can find. We used to use blood meal around plants because it did tend to keep some herbavores away. It could work on deer and some rabbits. But ground squirrels loved it! Here is a small list of items we have used to repel the larger creatures:
Panther Pee, Coyote urine, (I’m being serious here), the hottest peppers (wash your hands after handling! word from the wise here 
, and the ulitmate of all – The Fence. We make sure and attach an impenetrable barrier of hardware cloth or chicken wire to the possible entry areas of fences, most notably at the bottoms, to simply keep them away. In the end, the fence is Man’s way of telling deer they look nice but they need their own food. And the same with those Wascawwy Wabbits!
I am open to suggestions on any of these dilemmas. They remain a constant factor for all of us in one way or the other and they can cause some real serious problems. I would invite all to suggest cures in the realization that I’ll probably actually try them. I make a good Guinea Pig. Oops, another critter. See what I mean?
