Rock On

As I mentioned we've been working on getting the yard in order. I had an informal goal of having things look nice for Jerry's 40th birthday party. There were two reasons for this: 1) The yard would be presentable for the party and 2) we wouldn't be working on the yard in the heat of summer.

First, we used some river rock from the side yard to a rock border around the pool. We knew we wanted rocks around the pool so toys and kids didn't get muddy, but we weren't sure what we would use to contain the rocks. We debated several choices and finally decided on just using the rocks we already had in the yard. Cheap and effective!

Next we ordered some landscaping rock. Ordering was the easy part! We got a 15 ton load of 3/4 inch screened "Walker Gold" granite. We knew it wouldn't be quite enough to finish the areas we wanted to cover, but the company we bought it from only offers full truck loads and we didn't think we'd need two loads.

So Friday March 22nd Jerry took the day off to work on some projects and we had the rock delivered.

The boys thought it was a fun place to play.

Then came the hard part. Spreading it all. We worked a little at a time. First we would weed and level the area to get it ready for rock. We decided against any type of landscape fabric for weed control. We sprayed weed killer and pre-emergent instead. Then Jerry loaded the rock into the wheelbarrow and I spread it with the rake. Unfortunately, the wheelbarrow tire gave out before we did. We ended up buying a solid one so we didn't have to keep patching the tire.

We didn't get done until right before the big party. In fact, we still aren't completely done. We ran out of rock. We knew it wasn't going to be enough, but it actually got us a lot further along in coverage than we thought. We'll have to order a few more tons from the landscape place to finish up the job although that just might have to wait until after summer when it cools down.

 Here are a few of the areas we spread the rock...

I think it looks really nice! Now we just have to work to keep it weed free.

Funny story about this area. We spread the rock and I added the stepping stones because we had decided we would remove this section of fence so it would be easy to get to the "outhouse" from the pool. See my lovely stepping stone path?

Well, apparently the fence was already there when they poured the concrete. This means that the fence is buried in about 8 inches of cement. So the stepping stones lead to no where. Needless to say, it will be awhile before we take the time to cut the fence (if we ever do).