I’m stoned!

Yes, I finally got the LAST load of stone on the Lavender Slope and am I feeling muscular!  I need to determine the weight of 2 1/2 yards of stone so I’ll know just how much I shoveled, hauled, and spread.  But, it was worth it!  In case you don’t remember how awful the slope looked, here’s a reminder.

And this was AFTER it had been weeded multiple times, because the landscape cloth kept blowing free (those landscape “pins” are almost worthless) and even pieces of lumber and bricks wouldn’t keep it down.  Whenever the cloth lifted even a bit, dozens of weeds sprang up mightily, and I’ve discovered that weeding on a slope is not nearly as easy as weeding on level.  It’s one of the FEW times I’ve been glad to be a flatlander.  Plus the three different types of leftover weed barrier didn’t really add to the glamour either.

I chose a stone that looked good with the brick on the house and the fencing of the potager, Dixie River Rock, and I’m highly pleased with it, although it is $80 a yard (plus tax, of course!) Here’s the first bit of stone….  Notice the weed bucket holding the landscape cloth in place, and filling up with weeds yet again!  And here’s the slope fully stoned!   

Notice there is a tidy top edge now.  (as is not the case in photo #1)  Isn’t that stone beautiful?  And now and then, mixed with the stone, there are tiny shells with pearly white interiors and swirly black and white exteriors that capture my attention.  But what else captures your attention????  Yep, now the slope looks good, but the path on the right between it and the potager looks downright disgraceful.  So, that had to be fixed.  Mulch load #6…       Doesn’t that look much, mulch better?  There was still mulch left, even after doing both ends of the slope, but that’s a post for tomorrow!

And, I know you highly observant readers noticed that the 5 dead plants are still on the slope.  Yes, they are, and there they will remain until I grow or get replacements.  I’m sorry I pulled out corpse #6, because now that it is stoned, I can’t find the hole in the landscape cloth to put in a new plant!  Live and learn…even at 70!