It’s a bit gratifying to look back at my last few blog posts as our new garden area takes shape. Things have changed. The scale of the garden madness becomes a little more apparent as construction spreads.
The landscaping bricks are place holders for rocks I don’t have yet. I have the cobbles and slabs for paving the area I’ve dug out in front of the new gate and the stairs beyond it that lead up to rose bushes by the house. There are also some left-over blocks of granite in one of our sheds that I plan to use, and some boxes of marble and granite I bought. I haven’t used cobbles as a pavement before. As I imagine it, each cobble will need to be individually seated in wet cement between the slabs. Three cubic yards of cobbles should cover a considerable area.
With top and bottom views of the current state of the garden, the idea of this space as a walk through a shrubbery, with raised vegetable beds on the back side, begins to make sense.
With top and bottom views of the current state of the garden, the idea of this space as a walk through a shrubbery, with raised vegetable beds on the back side, begins to make sense.
Somehow I picture the finished space in the rain. I guess it’s a rain garden.
The drums are in place for the sculpture but it may take some time for the sculptures to take form. Ironically, the wheelbarrow also still seems to be in the same place.
Shrubs planted or in buckets waiting to be planted include Goshiki variegated osmanthus, purple Loropetalum (a Chinese relative of witch hazel) intended to grow to hedge size, dwarf Norwegian spruce, dwarf Cryptomeria, dwarf cedar, assorted spireas, azaleas, and tree hydrangeas, laurel, dwarf crepe myrtle, and roses.
Shrubs planted or in buckets waiting to be planted include Goshiki variegated osmanthus, purple Loropetalum (a Chinese relative of witch hazel) intended to grow to hedge size, dwarf Norwegian spruce, dwarf Cryptomeria, dwarf cedar, assorted spireas, azaleas, and tree hydrangeas, laurel, dwarf crepe myrtle, and roses.
I’ve done steps a number of times, from sets of little steps to the fairly monumental multi-ton stone stairs faced with red Devonian sandstone that my brother Alan and I laid at the old Cottonwood garden, as recounted in my blog post of March 27, each step nearly the size of a twin bed.
Once Alan and I did a flight of brick steps made from an old fallen chimney for my aunts in Lynchburg. Alan and I dug the stairs into their hillside looking out over the James River. Digging was the only technique we knew. We dug the steps in so deeply that if we had wanted to, we could have filled the stairs back in with the leftover dirt and produced a buried staircase. That’s an idea with some romance to it. The idea of a buried staircase is somehow a bit thrilling. We have a couple of unexploited declivities around here and I foresee a truly unusual project.
Another time I knocked together some wooden steps to suit some forgotten occasion, just to see if it could be done. I feel sure I have a solid grasp of every mistake that can be made constructing stairs of any size and material, and all these mistakes will need to be brought into play here.
I recall the time my father Dover, a professional builder of real skill and ingenuity, was first confronted with one of my front door stoops. The play of emotions across his face was wonderful. He couldn’t praise it. No one could. He couldn’t criticize it either. The English language doesn’t have an adjective for that. There was nothing to say. Yes, it appeared to be patted together by desperate monkeys out of marble chips and cement in a rainstorm. And it was one of the heaviest objects for its size for miles around. It was Lovecraftian, Nietzschean in appearance. In a way it was visually offensive but first the mind had to stretch enough to encompass it as a possibility.
Finally Dover spoke. “Did you do this yourself?”
“There was no one else,” I said evasively.
In the end the stoop had to be re-poured. I built a wooden frame and went with a simple tetrahedonal Brutalist slab of uneven cement inspired by Mies van der Rohe and le Corbusier.
Once Alan and I did a flight of brick steps made from an old fallen chimney for my aunts in Lynchburg. Alan and I dug the stairs into their hillside looking out over the James River. Digging was the only technique we knew. We dug the steps in so deeply that if we had wanted to, we could have filled the stairs back in with the leftover dirt and produced a buried staircase. That’s an idea with some romance to it. The idea of a buried staircase is somehow a bit thrilling. We have a couple of unexploited declivities around here and I foresee a truly unusual project.
Another time I knocked together some wooden steps to suit some forgotten occasion, just to see if it could be done. I feel sure I have a solid grasp of every mistake that can be made constructing stairs of any size and material, and all these mistakes will need to be brought into play here.
I recall the time my father Dover, a professional builder of real skill and ingenuity, was first confronted with one of my front door stoops. The play of emotions across his face was wonderful. He couldn’t praise it. No one could. He couldn’t criticize it either. The English language doesn’t have an adjective for that. There was nothing to say. Yes, it appeared to be patted together by desperate monkeys out of marble chips and cement in a rainstorm. And it was one of the heaviest objects for its size for miles around. It was Lovecraftian, Nietzschean in appearance. In a way it was visually offensive but first the mind had to stretch enough to encompass it as a possibility.
Finally Dover spoke. “Did you do this yourself?”
“There was no one else,” I said evasively.
In the end the stoop had to be re-poured. I built a wooden frame and went with a simple tetrahedonal Brutalist slab of uneven cement inspired by Mies van der Rohe and le Corbusier.
Anyone can abandon theory, but the real interest lies in abandoning technique as well. One should approach such a task as if no one had ever used such materials before. It’s just as important to have no real idea why one is doing it. The normal syntax of events will then be lost and the fallacy of Completeism, defined as the belief that tasks have purpose and an end point, can be successfully foiled.
There is another gate. This is the last gate until I build another fence. Fence first, then gate—although I suppose a person could build a gate first and then fence around it. Ultimately this comparatively tiny gate was the most trouble.
Of the three gates, it has the least to do, being a sort of postern gate for the back door.
There is another gate. This is the last gate until I build another fence. Fence first, then gate—although I suppose a person could build a gate first and then fence around it. Ultimately this comparatively tiny gate was the most trouble.
Of the three gates, it has the least to do, being a sort of postern gate for the back door.
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