Back garden bed wall finished

The last of the blocks were put up on the wall. The last two rows were glued into place with construction adhesive and tapped down with the dead blow hammer.

 

Here is what the finished course looks like.

 

And here is a view from the yard side.

 

The back step to go into the house is going to have a small step so the blocks were glued in place to support the tread.

Next up was moving that big pile of dirt and regrading it around the yard.

It took quite a few shovels but here it is graded out over the back area. Next up we just need to put down some grass seed.

Back Garden Bed Wall

Both Kristen and I are still trying to get over our colds but we were able to get some of the back garden bed wall done over the weekend. The first step was to level the bottom of the pit and put in about a 3-4 inch base under the wall stones. Here you can see the trench after leveling and filling with 5/8" clean stone.

Then the stones were laid and were seated with a dead blow mallet. Each one was checked for level both along and across the wall. Here you can see the first stones laid.

And the whole first course laid.

Once the first course is down the others proceed quite quickly. The last couple will take a little time because they will be glued in place to lock the top of the wall. Here is a picture of the second course laid.

Back Garden Bed

We worked on defining the shape of the back garden bed that will take up the corner along the fence and the steps up to the back patio. There was a big mound of dirt from creating the wall so a cut was made through it where the wall will go. The top of the stakes represent a level point about 6 inches below where the top of the wall will be.

Pavers were laid down in it to look at the shape from multiple angles. Here is the view from above.

And from the backyard side.

We also picked up a planter and some fall plants to put up on the patio. You can see that we are still brushing around the sand to fill in the cracks on the patio.

Garlic from the garden

We picked some of the garlic from the garden the other day. These came from a couple of cloves that we did not get out of the ground last year. After picking we let the cloves sit out in the sun for a couple of days to harden the skin. The original cloves were elephant and these ones turned out quite big.

Stairs to the top done!

The last couple of stairs to the top of the patio from the landing still had to be finished up. When we were working on the stairs we knew that there was going to be about three steps up and it worked out perfectly. First the area under the stairs was brought level with the pavers on the patio.

The next step was to cut the blocks for the base course. These had to be cut for both length and height (the bottom blocks were not full height). Here is a picture of the cut end of a block.

Here is a picture of setting out the bottom course. You can see in this picture that I was screwing up by making the stairs only two steps!... had to go back and fix that.

Next, rebar was pounded into the holes and the blocks were locked in place with gravel.

Here is a picture once all of the courses have been installed.

Next up the treads were placed on the steps. Only the top step needed to be trimmed where it interfaced the concrete patio because this edge is not very straight.

Here is what the new steps look like from the kitchen window.

Here is what it looks like from the area between the house and the garage.

And from the backyard. Next up we will be working on the new back garden bed at the base of the retaining wall.

The Flowers are Finally Out

All of the flowers are all finally out. The planter that we did on the front porch has some nice color combinations.

The daisies, black eyed susans and crocosmia have really taken over the front bed. Once the new bed is complete in back we will divide these plants and move some of them into the back.

The side bed is mostly blues, purples and whites.

We planted some white and pink/purple dahlias here without much hope of success but they have created huge blossoms that all need to be staked to not fall over.

Fitting Back Pavers

In the back area between the garage and the house we are working on finishing up the pavers. All of the pavers that border the curved bed needed to be cut. Here you can see them all in place.

Additional pavers were also laid up to the door of the garage. There will be a single step here to transition up to the door.

Once they were done we started to spread the sand that is used to fill the cracks.

The sand was swept around and hosed down into the cracks.