{"id":10424,"date":"2012-06-18T14:26:59","date_gmt":"2012-06-18T21:26:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/ClaireWolfe\/?p=10424"},"modified":"2012-06-18T14:26:59","modified_gmt":"2012-06-18T21:26:59","slug":"landscaping-for-slobs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/2012\/06\/18\/landscaping-for-slobs\/","title":{"rendered":"Landscaping for slobs"},"content":{"rendered":"

I mentioned before that the people I bought my new-old house from were into landscaping that … well, could best be called chaotic<\/a> (photos). While they completely neglected the house during their 15-year residence, they did a lot to the yard.<\/p>\n

And a lot. And a lot. And a lot more. And then more on top of that. They built ornamental fences and archways and hanging gardens and benches and canopies and screens. And they put in ponds and fountains and birdhouses and … well, you name it. And they built a fence and hung stuff on it and nailed stuff to it. And they made “clever” use or old tires and washtubs and plumbing pipes.<\/p>\n

And every time they ever went on a vacation or to the beach or to a garage sale, they brought back more stuff — make that capital-S Stuff — and added it to the tiny, tiny backyard. Broken toy ships, driftwood, sea shells, old teapots, several dozen air filters from heavy equipment that became plant stands, ashtrays, etc., etc. etc.<\/p>\n

I think you’re getting the idea by now that there was a LOT of etc. in that yard. And we are talking about a tiny, tiny, itty-bitty space.<\/p>\n

The initial effect was quirky and charming. But it didn’t take long to discover that everything had been badly done. It was all rotting and near collapse. Over the last two years, I knocked down, dragged out, and had hauled away roughly 16 pickup loads of trash. Some was from the house or the garage. But mostly it was pieces of that yard. Even after giving all the metal to a scrap dealer and a lot of the wood to folks with stoves, I’ve probably already spent close to $1,000 in landfill fees.<\/p>\n

And still … the yard was like the Thing That Ate [Name the Mid-Sized City of Your Choice]. I’d sit out there and want to scream. I wouldn’t even know where to begin to make it better, since much of what was left involved Heavy Lifting and intelligent planning.<\/p>\n

So I finally just bit the bullet. For the last two and a half days, a nice yard guy and his hardworking young person-of-dubious-citizenship-status assistant have had the run of that yard while I mostly hid inside.<\/p>\n

This is what they tore out of there. After<\/i> nearly two years of trash hauling.<\/p>\n

\"Huge<\/a><\/p>\n

We still have to tear down and replace the fence (which was sort of makeshift in the first place and is now falling over due to posts not cemented into the ground). And remove one, maybe two, trees. But that’ll be later. At least what’s inside the fence is now officially non-trash.<\/p>\n

AND we’ve made space for a 20 x 24 raised-bed (eventual) veggie garden.<\/p>\n

I think I’ll go out and roll in the nice, fresh, uncluttered MUD.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I mentioned before that the people I bought my new-old house from were into landscaping that … well, could best be called chaotic (photos). While they completely neglected the house during their 15-year residence, they did a lot to the yard. And a lot. And a lot. And a lot more. And then more on top of that. They built ornamental fences and archways and hanging gardens and benches and canopies and screens. And they put in ponds and fountains and birdhouses and … well, you name it. And they built a fence and hung stuff on it and nailed…<\/p>\n

Continue readingLandscaping for slobs<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,31],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10424","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-home-improvement","category-rural-and-small-town-living","ratio-natural","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10424","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10424"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10424\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10424"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10424"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10424"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}