Concrete – May 29 & 30, 2018

The landscape job was completed at the end of March, but due to the rain and the backlog of jobs for the concrete guys, we had to wait another 2 months for the concrete!!!  URGGGG.  It really messed up our plans for our other DIY projects, but it all worked out in the end.

This is where the stepping stones used to be, nestled in bark.  Every time we used the hose in this area, or walked the lawn mower over the stones, or it rained hard, the stones were covered with bark.  We wanted to end that nightmare, so we decided to create a walkway to connect our main patio area to the small concrete patio outside of our bedroom.  We also wanted to continue the walkway all the way down the side of the house, which was just decomposed granite.  We hate the decomposed granite because it embeds itself to the bottom of your shoes and it gets tracked everywhere, including the garage and the house!

We also wanted to extend the walkway up to the house and under the hose because every time we turned on the hose it made a big mess in the dirt/bark.

That patch of concrete you see here is the small patio off our master bedroom.  We had the walkway meet the patio here and extend down the side of the house.

Entrance to my garage.

They began by digging down where they needed, then laid the forms.

The concrete was fed through this super long tube by one guy, while several of the other guys worked the concrete.  It was amazing to watch the process.

We wanted to match the existing concrete which was salted, so we did the same for the new concrete.  Of course the colors are different because new concrete is gray and the 13 year old patios have changed to more of a tan color.  Our plan is to stain all the concrete in the back yard.  Hopefully we can get that done next summer.  It will be a very long process because we now have a lot of concrete between the large patio and walkways down both sides of the house. We’ll do it ourselves to save money, but it will have to be done in sections.

After they salted the walkways, the next day they just hosed it off and it was left with the “pitted” look.

New Backyard… FINALLY!!!

March 2018

This certainly was not a DIY project, just too big of a job for us and not our forte to design on such a large scale.

BEFORE                          AFTER

 
 

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We brought in several professional landscapers and finally decided on Executive Care Landscape.  After working with the owner Arthur and his crew, we just loved the work they did.  The first photo below is what this section of the yard looked like when we moved into the house in 2011.  See all that brown area, that is playground bark and I’ll talk about that later and show you with pictures what we did with it.

This next photo is after we put in the retaining wall in 2014, and we planted the little tree in the circle in 2016.

These flagstone stepping stones were repurposed in the new landscape, which you will see later.

Here’s our lovely dead lawn that died about 3 years ago.

After last winter we got lots of weeds and patches of grass coming up, but it all had to go!!

That is soft playground bark we are shoveling to use it on both sides of the house, photos to follow.  In some areas the bark was about 7” deep, so there was a LOT of it.  The good thing it was super lightweight so we didn’t break our backs.

Part of the landscaping plan was to add a concrete path along the side of the house which just had decomposed granite and junk over there.  We had nowhere to put the bark, which we would use after the concrete was poured.  We had to leave room for the concrete guys to build the forms and lay the concrete.  Therefore, we put down about 40 feet of plastic along the fence line to hold the bark for the next 2 months.

This is day 1 and the crew worked for 11 days total to complete the landscaping part (not concrete).  The work days were not consecutive because we had many days of rain.  Although the project started February 27th, they didn’t finish until one month later at the end of March!

This is the river rock bed being created to look like a natural river flow.

They used huge plastic sheets to cover the ground in an effort to protect the ground from getting saturated so they could continue to work when it finally stopped raining.  Needless to say our yard was an ugly mess!! 

They brought in 9,000 pounds of moss rock boulders!!

When they were placing the boulders along the river bed, they looked so huge to us, but now after 6 months of plant growth, the rocks look fine.

The guys man-handled these rocks and made it look fairly easy, but we know some of the rocks can weight about 1,200 pounds.  The crew worked their butts off.

They brought in 3 yards of cobble for the river bed.

With the cobble laid and the plants arriving, the backyard started to come together.

The white material under the cobble is weed barrier.  Weed barrier is not used in the rest of the new landscaping because pre-emergent is applied twice a year to help in the prevention of weeds.

The black tubing is the drip system which runs throughout the entire yard.

In the Sacramento area, whether it’s residential or commercial areas, bark is used to retain moisture in the soil, suppress weeds, keep the soil cool, and make the garden bed look more attractive.  We are not fans of bark due to the mess it can make.  Therefore, we decided to use lava rock instead.  It has the same benefits of bark, but it’s easier to blow off leaves and we really like the look of it.

This is when they started to haul in the lava rock.  They stacked it all over the yard, then spread it out evenly.

One of those rainy days… what a mess!!

The sod has arrived!!!  We still wanted a small amount of lawn for a splash of color, so we down sized from our previous lawn to about 1/3 of what we had before.

Once the landscaping was complete, Hank & I laid down the stone mow strip around the lawn.

Remember these flagstone stepping stones I mentioned earlier?  We used these to create two walkways that meander throughout the new landscape and lava rock.  We did this ourselves and are very happy with the results.

Re-purposed stepping stones