Wednesday, September 03, 2008

Parkway Expansion

I took advantage of the long weekend and I am about 90% done with our parkway project.

Ingredients:
2 trips to Buy the Yard to get river rocks
400 pounds of rock
4 bags hardwood mulch
3 bags of soil conditioner
1/2 day Saturday
1/2 day Sunday
one achey elbow

Here is the view from the south side. The bed has hostas bordering it, iris, roses, sedum, some alliums, our slowly growing pine tree, and one hardy shrub (seen on the far end).


I plan to add a bunch of daffodils and muscari for the spring.


This is the view from the north. On Monday I saw a little boy walking along the rocks and I thought that was kind of cute.



Here is the last section, which I will be wrapping up this coming weekend.

The worst part about this whole project was removing the grass and also digging out the very compacted and root filled soil.

Anyone who has excavated a city parkway will know what I am talking about. But what I kept telling myself is that this is a "one time" job and as long as I do not plant grass again- I will never have to go through this again! Kind of like stripping woodwork- don't paint it and you won't have to strip it again.

I am super happy with the way this project turned out. I didn't have to buy a single plant either after dividing up the existing hostas and relocating a few others from various parts of the yard.

8 comments:

Sandy said...

It looks great!

Joanne said...

All I can say is wow. That looks amazing.

I'm trying to decide how to handle our parkway; because we're situated on the corner, with our entrance on the long side, we have maybe eight times as much parkway as you do--it's daunting. I guess we'll just start at the front door and work our way outward.

Patrick said...

Very nice. Inspires us to do something with our parkway in front of our bungalow in Rogers Park. We're close to a school, so kids just trample all over the grass. It looks like you'll have greenery in there year round?

Patrick said...

Looks great. Will you have greenery in there year-round? We need to do something with our parkway, since we're only a few doors down from a school in Rogers Park and kids trample the grass.

Patrick said...

Sorry for the double comment - I thought the first one didn't take.

Jocelyn said...

Thanks Patrick. Nice to hear from another local! The only greenery will be the pine tree at this point.

If you want to pick up some inexpensive perennials, Rogers Park Garden Group is having a plant sale on Sunday 9/28 over at Jarvis Square.

The best thing about planting the parkway is no more lawn maintenance. You are right- lawns get trashed in the city.

Jocelyn said...

GF- I know you guys are a corner lot right? That is a BIG job.

Thanks also :o)

theshopkeeper said...

It looks awesome....I'd love to do this at our house.