New Patio

This past August I hired an arborist to remove a large pine tree next to the front house. It was the wrong tree to be planted so close to a house, especially with the high winds we get out here.

The area around the tree is deep layers of gravel, sand on top of that, then brick, and the brick is being pushed up by the tree roots which makes for a very wonky and unused patio. Not only was this area filled with trip hazards, but brick here in the PNW can get very slippery so I decided to replace the brick with gravel.

The patio is an odd layout. Where the tree sits, it's just soil below. The "green" square next to the fence is only about a 2" layer of soil on top of gravel, so the plants were very sad. I moved the one nice-looking plant under the windows and pulled out the rest. The tree growing next to the fence wasn't doing anything all year (also very unhappy growing in gravel), not even sure what it is so we took that down also.

My goal here is to make this a usable and easy-to-maintain space. I don't have a gardener so I pay myself (in naps) to take care of everything on this 1-acre.

As you can see here, we have lots of Douglas fir trees directly west of the house that provide nice shade, but removing the pine also allows a ton more natural light to spill into the house. Do you see the person in the tree? Also in this photo, you can see the brown grass growing around the birch and cherry trees, and on top of gravel, in the foreground.

I can't believe how much brick came from this area, this photo doesn't even show all of it. I pulled each one up, dusted off the sand, and started my brick blob wall. The gorgeous yellow poplar leaves are sprinkled over the field, and there's some beautiful fall color in the distance.

When I needed a break from hauling brick, I'd work on digging out the 14 billion roots that had taken over. Digging out this stump soon proved to be way too big and both I and my tenant tried splitting it, chainsaw, drilling into it, and even burning it out. Since none of that worked, I started asking neighbors about stump grinding and hauling.

Turns out I have a neighbor down the way who collects stumps that he grinds into mulch, so he drove his tractor down the road, ripped it out, and hauled it off.

I also took apart these enormous benches and the brick fire pit. This pathway to these stairs was always a bit slick and very uneven and I want the safest option for my tenants. I had A LOT of leveling to do after removing both the brick and roots. I used a normal yard rake to smooth out the sand layer, hosed it down to help compact it, raked more, let the rain compact it, and raked more, more water.

I stopped going to the gym during this entire project.

I used this opportunity to put in another gravel drainage trench. I think at this point I had dug 5 trenches, and lucky for me this one didn't need to be as deep as the others because gravel was already present under the layers of brick and sand.

I don't like landscape fabric much but decided to use it for this gravel area. Probably could have worked either way, but it's too late to change things now. The area to the right of the fabric (south-facing) is also sand and gravel, so figuring out this area has been complex.

I think I'd like to build raised beds there, it's a great spot to grow food for the house with easy kitchen access. If not raised beds, I'm imagining extending the triangle planting bed that's there now and extending the dividing fence further to give more separation between the front and back houses. I also mulched around the cherry tree and have noticed a big difference in how it holds its limbs; they're much more lifted! I'll do the same for the birch trees next to the cherry.

I used 4 x 4 woodcuts in different lengths found in the barn for the edging. They were free and available and I like the look of it. As you can see, I chose to cut the straight line in to give more working space around a septic clean-out.

The fabric area in the left photo is where the tree used to be. I had to dig out a lot more roots and soil, then lay gravel, sand, fabric, and more gravel.

Another instance of redoing work I just finished. After I decided to make the area by the fence ALL gravel instead of gravel and raised beds, not having a straight line to the fence gate looked lazy. Also, this planter area is all gravel under a few inches of soil, so the plants are very confused and struggle to survive. Cutting into the planter gives more patio/parking space and tightens up the growing space. I haven't decided how to organize the planter yet, and I'm thinking of using some of the brick to build up a few rows for a chance to get more soil on top of the deep layers of gravel.

Also, there's a hose bib coming off the house that doesn't currently work, but someday I'd like to get it working and I'm happy it now drains into gravel.

Much happier with this. As you can see I used more 4 x 4 barn wood and brick. I have so many bricks.

These two pressure-treated boards were there for the brick, but now that the gravel is down I decided to rip those out. It's another late-in-the-process decision, but I'm happy with the change.

Inching closer, and nearly out of gravel. I'd guess I only have 2 wheelbarrows remaining. I've moved on to the green area on the right of the above photo...it's layers of sand and gravel with weeds and grass on the surface.

I'm scraping the top layer, all around the birch trees and will reorganize the triangle planter bed. I'm thinking of building some raised beds there with the free brick I have; it gets great southern exposure. I'll also add mulch around the birch trees like I did for the cherry tree.

That's all for now, thanks for jumping into my differently-organized thoughts with me.