The Garden Project...

Or, otherwise known as the Project That Killed Me. Well, not really, but my legs really hurt when I was done!!

It all began in June. DH and I were enjoying a fire in our backyard one evening, and it happened. I had an idea. It was a good idea at first. Before I realized the amount of work it would entail. But, I forged ahead with voicing it anyway. "What if we transform the plot of grass between our house and our neighbor's house into a perennial garden?" Well, DH was all for it. So, we approached The Insane Gardener (a.k.a. our neighbor) and she really liked the idea, too. In fact, she already had plans of expanding her perennial garden in that section out further, so this just fit right into her plans.

We all decided that it would be best if we each had half of the available space to do with what we wanted, separated by a footpath that we would leave grass. DH jumped on that part of the project and immediately ran a guideline and staked out what he thought was an acceptable path. After showing off his work to The Insane Gardener and me - we explained what he had done wrong. There weren't enough curves in his path - it needed to meander more! So, DH set to work again and came up with this (June 9):

Both The Insane Gardener and I liked this layout much better. Notice the cistern cover in the middle of the picture? Yeah, we had to navigate around that. We made the footpath about 4 feet wide so DH would still be able to get the lawn mower out of the garage and into the front lawn.

We began getting the sod out a little bit at a time, after work in the evenings and on the weekends. It wasn't an easy job, but it was getting done. After roughly a month, it looked like this (July 7):

Apparently when we got our side done, it was enough motivation for The Insane Gardener to get to work on her side and within 4 days, we had it to this point (July 11):

I started to buy plants at the local stores for our side and was planting them as we bought them, but it was apparent that I would need many more than I had by the time the big day hit. It had worked out that all of us (DH, The Insane Gardener and myself) had a long weekend off from work, so we decided to tackle The Project and get as much of it done as we could. We started off the day at 10:00 a.m. with a trip to my uncle's farm to go through his rock pile for the third and last time. That resulted in one smashed toe (mine) and some scratched arms (The Insane Gardener's). We got everything home and unloaded and got to work. This is how it looked at 11:30 a.m. (July 18):

After working long and hard (with many breaks mixed in) all day, we finally had this to show for our hard labor:

We lined the path with rocks from my uncle's rock pile. DH put together an arbor which he spent the day applying polyurethane to. He also made the structure level (very important). I got all the plants I had purchased in the ground and a layer of mulch over everything. I can't wait for the morning glories to start climbing the arbor!

The Insane Gardener spent much of the day moving items around in the garden that she already had established. She called it giving her plants "room to breathe." She didn't get everything moved around the way she wants it, so the mulch is waiting a bit.

Oh yeah! DH also made us these awesome trellisses for the gardens! You can't see them in the above pictures, but they're planted behind things that say they need staking up - I love my handy hubby.

And now that our portion of the Project That Killed Me - I mean the Garden Project - is over, I am very very thankful. There will be no more gardening from this chicky for the rest of the year. Although, I think I heard DH mention something about putting in another perennial garden along the back wall next year?? Uh oh....well, that's next year. For now, I'm enjoying watching my little plants blossom as they enjoy their new home.