With the backyard being a little toward the harsh "monument to concrete" look, Marc decided to take a more gentle approach to the sideyard. (Either that or he just refused to mix anymore concrete.)
We needed to built a small retaining wall in order to stop the grade from sloping toward our house. Um, yeah, not so good for drainage when the grade all around your house slopes toward it! This was a project that wanted to tackle himself without my nagging supportive presence.
He graded by hand, then took the rest of our broken concrete pieces and dry-stacked them to create this rather lovely wall. He took the grass he cut-out while regrading, placed it on top of and in the side pockets of the wall and reseeded it. It has grown in pretty nicely don't you think?
It is the new favorite spot of the girls, and the grass is not in on the top yet, so it gets their shoes good and dirty. The price of a lot of fun, I guess.
Last thing, he took some remaining granite pieces we found in the yard and used them to create a line to stop the patio gravel. To the right will be grass when it grows in next spring.
For all this hard work, you'd think Marc would get some recognition from all of us. I've given him major props for this, but Franca mostly likes to heckle him from the warm, dry inside and fake punch him in the nose.
On a final note,
remember that HUGE MASS OF MINT, followed by the lone straggly single mint plant? Well that single plant was multiplying and threatening to take back over, so Marc quickly containerized it.
This spring, this garden is getting whipped into shape! Really, that is the last to do beyond the gates and cleaning up the last junk pile in the corner.
