Lighthouse Park Strip
I am not a huge fan of the rocks that our house had when we moved in. I figured I could change it later. It took a couple years but after building the Gabion mailbox (Click here) I felt there was to much rock going on. I also hate to just get rid of useful material so I redesigned the park strip to incorporate the rocks that I have but give it a cleaner not overpowering look. The problem with a park strip rock garden is that means no one ran sprinklers to the park strip. So the first thing I did was build a water drill. I of coarse can not find the photo so I'll describe it. I went to Depot and grabbed a 24" pvc pipe I then purchased a the straight hose nozzle couple adapters so I could hook it to my garden hose. I dug a hole on the lawn side where I could tie into the sprinklers and then dug a hole on the non sprinkler side. I then turned on the hose and aimed. I will note that I dug a pit below where the hole was being drilled to catch the sediment that was being pushed out to allow for my hole. It only took maybe ten minutes.
I then purchased bendy board for concrete and stakes. I bent the board in the pattern I was looking for and also used the bendy board to corral all the stone into one place.
After achieving what I thought was a great pattern I then went and found some top soil. With the work truck full of work stuff and the big Tacoma full of compost: i had to take the little Tacoma.
It ended up taking three loads of top soil to get the hole thing full. I ended up doing 4-5 inches deep of top soil. I then spent a week watering it down to help it settle. They say to keep it 1" below the sidewalk but I'm a rebel and went like .5 " thinking that when it settled it would be perfect. turns out it may be a little high but it still looks good. I probably did this backwards but i got my shape and added topsoil first. Then i removed my concrete bendy boards and replaced with an edging. This gave me something to cut against with sod but it should prevent the grass from trying to grow into my rocks.
The benefit of the top soil is that when I put the sod down the grass grabbed hold and it is super green and its hard to keep up with the mowing. Even in the extreme heat that we have experienced this year it has stayed a dark green. Other areas in my yard did not fair so well. I thought I measured well for the sod but I ended up being just a little short. But I have been working on another project in the back yard so I ended up transplanting some grass from there to fill in that last little spot.
I then added some Mexican Feather Grass that I had been growing in the flower beds. I then divided one of my Stella O'Grady plants and placed them strategically throughout the rocks.
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