Adding a Garden Feature

Excerpt from 2006 Tall Talk article by Pat Otterness

Adding a Garden Feature

Nothing happens quickly at Laughingstock. My grandiose plans invariably require more money, energy, and skill than I possess. This does not deter me from taking action, however. I mean, think about it. If I had the brains God gave a Billy goat, I would never have gotten myself involved in this iris-breeding gig at all ... never, ever, dreamed up my little ill-conceived Gardens at Laughingstock. That’s the kind of mentality we’re dealing with here. But planning? I don’t think so!

As I’ve mentioned before (ad nauseum), I never really planned my iris garden. It just sort of exploded into life and grew spontaneously in all directions. Rows that once boasted corn, beans, tomatoes, cabbage ... all fell before the onslaught of the iris invader. The yummy rows of kale, mustard, turnip, and collard greens ... gone! Replaced with iris after iris after iris, marching in rows, like soldiers, across my field. Eventually, the vegetables were gone ... every last one finally driven out by a host of colorful transients that blazed a trail of springtime glory across the hillside, briefly feeding the spirit, rather than the body, of the grower.

Before long, people began to visit my garden. Some were invited. Others merely chanced upon it, and were enchanted. For instance: one year I caught the postman sneaking pictures of my garden through the fence. A meter reader dropped by and brought his whole family. An artist asked to take photographs of

my garden to use as a basis for watercolor paintings. So, okay, he was my neighbor’s plumber, but a skilled artist all the same. And here’s the thing: my garden is an embarrassment! As a garden, it is ... dare I say it? ... a laughingstock!

Every time I walk a visitor up the uneven strip of grass that serves as a path between the two sides of my garden ... every time I warn someone to watch their footing, or have to barricade my compost hole to keep visitors from falling in ... I think about how nice it would be to have a display garden. Neat beds, edged in stone. Lovely, graded paths, leading up to a hillside patio, with a bench where one could sit and gaze down upon the beauty of the garden.

We’ve all had these kinds of dreams. Those with deep pockets may even have paid a landscaper to create such a garden. Others, like myself, lacking both money for a landscaper and competence for do-it-your-selfing, can only dream ... or go boldly where few indolent dreamers have gone before.

Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu once said that a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. He saw action arising naturally out of stillness. Or, for those who prefer Mother Goose: First one foot, and then another, leg over leg, the dog went to Dover. This is my own philosophy, in a nutshell! Unable to afford either a landscaper or the accoutrements of the skilled do-it-yourselfer, I most often begin my new ventures on blind trust. Because I live way out in the back-of-beyond, delivery costs for anything too heavy or too large to fit in my car easily exceed any monies I have available for purchasing them ... always a conundrum! But heedless of these grim realities, I occasionally embark upon some hopeful new project intended to beautify my yard or my garden.

Several years ago, I became determined to add a long-dreamed-of water garden to my little yard. After visiting garden center after garden center, and reading long descriptions of the how-tos and where-to-gets, I found that once again I had been outmaneuvered by size of desired object, lack of pickup truck, and monetary insufficiency. Bummer! I settled for a Rubbermaid pig trough that my son, Brian, was able to order through the hardware store where he works, and carry home for me in the back of his car. My job ...somehow ...was to make a silk pond out of a sow’s trough (metaphorically speaking, of course).

I had intended to sink this rigid container into the ground, but I was foiled by rocks, tree roots, and ubiquitous red clay soil the consistency of brick. So, okay ... change of plans ... I’d make an above-ground pool, and surround it with attractive paving stones to hide the gray body of the trough. After spending the better part of a month trying to get the trough level ... my yard is a little tricky for anyone wanting flat to figure in the equation ... it was close enough to satisfy my growing impatience. I added a small fountain (quickly clogged with plant matter) ... lovely water irises ... even a few goldfish (eaten by raccoons within the week). It looked very pretty, and was admired by one and all. No cow, deer, raccoon, possum, cat, or dog in the area failed to notice that it was ... first and foremost ... a trough! I spent a lot of time every day refilling my water garden. For a while, I even replaced the fish that got eaten, but eventually I admitted defeat and let the raccoons look elsewhere for midnight snacks.

My initial idea of using paving stones to hide the troughy nature of the water garden turned out to be a non-starter. It proved costly to buy, all at once, three layers of stones to surround the trough. Delivery costs, too, were prohibitive. Failing that, I considered my other option, but because these pavers were so heavy, I was a bit leery of carrying many at a time in the trunk of my car ... and ... since I couldn’t lift even one into my shopping cart, this was a moot point.

I decided on a fallback plan. I would lay attractive paving stones on the ground in a patio-like arrangement around the pig trough (water garden). The nice, sturdy 12" square paving stones I coveted were, of course, too heavy for me to lift ... at all! So, being a resourceful person, I decided to use pavers about the size of a large brick, but more attractive. One end was octagonal, while the other had a little square doo-dad sticking out ... sort of a keyhole-shape (as seen in the days of skeleton keys). I could, albeit with difficulty, carry one of these seven-pound pavers in each hand for a short distance.

Now remember, the closest store where I can purchase pavers is an hour’s drive from my home. Pavers are heavy, I am paranoid about the danger of overload- ing my car, and money is in short supply. Needless to say, progress was slow. Each paver cost about 69 cents, so I could buy 10-20 at a time without bankrupting myself. Loading the heavy, unwieldy pavers into a shopping basket, then into the trunk of my car, and later removing them and placing them around my water garden, was exhausting. It was like working out with 7 pound weights. Reality-check here: I’m old! I’m arthritic! It was torture!

Well, I never did finish that project. It looked pretty interesting, though, before the weeds started growing up through the places that were missing pavers. I arranged big, decorative pots of Asiatic lilies, daylilies, wave petunias, and more around the edges to hide the fact that my project had not gone as planned. Tadpoles flourished in the water garden ... well, those that weren’t eaten by the two surviving goldfish ... and eventually I had a home-grown bullfrog holding court on the lily pads in the water garden.

One winter, an unexpected influx of cash allowed me to purchase a really nice kit for making a teak bench glider. I could have bought one ready-made, of course, but what fun would that be? And buying the kit was much cheaper. If assembled correctly, it was guaranteed for 75 years. (At my age, odds were against outliving the warranty.)

Let me say, right up front, that this was not the kind of bench glider you get at Lowe’s, where you install a few screws and you’re ready to rock (glide, actually). We’re talking fine furniture here, from a place called Wood Classics. Mortise and tenon joinery ... where every tenon must be sanded to fit ... and glued into place! Screws are one thing, but glue is so-o-o unforgiving. I spent an entire month with the parts of my bench in the middle of the living room floor, as I gradually worked up the courage to apply that glue. There were screws, too, and the instructions said to assemble the entire bench with screws first, to be sure everything fit together correctly. Only then should one take it all apart and begin the gluing process. But first I had to assemble the glue-only back of the Chippendale bench. There were 22 pieces to the back ... meaning 44 mortises to be coated inside with glue, into which 44 carefully sanded tenons had to be very quickly insert- ed, all at once, before the glue either dried or the wood swelled so much that the tenons would no longer fit into them. This is not as easy as it sounds!

Despite the odds, I was able to complete the assembly of the Chippendale back, and then the remainder of the bench. Assembling the glider base was much easier, and with a little help from my trusty son Brian, I lifted the bench into the glider assembly and screwed it all together. My plan, bass-ackwards as usual, was to place the bench glider up in the iris garden. But ... hmm? ... there was no flat place on that hillside for a bench. Not even close. And it was January ... there was snow on the ground.

So-o-o ... Brian’s big gas barbecue grill ... which sat on the only flat, paved outdoor surface we could find ... had to be evicted from its place in front of the iris garden to make room for the bench glider. Any- thing, to restore passage through my living room!

Have you ever noticed how sometimes everything just seems to come together? How projects that have dragged along for months or even years, suddenly take off? That’s what happened to me this spring. It was a Sunday, and I was casting wildly about for ways to postpone weeding iris rows already long overdue for a spring weeding.

“I have an idea,” I said to my son Brian, who rolled his eyes dramatically. “I think we should use this day to make a flat place up on the hillside for the bench glider.” Brian suppressed a groan. After nearly forty years of filial subjugation, he was all too aware that my mind was a breeding ground for ideas I was not strong enough to implement. He was also aware that the muscle man on this project was likely to be ... once again ... my first-born son.

Dutifully, if not cheerfully, he followed me up the hillside to a spot just above the iris garden ... a place formerly used for storing large pots of irises. It was a decent-sized plot more-or-less grass-free, since it was still covered with old, torn weed barrier fabric. After a brief exchange of opinions, this area became ... by default, since it was the only place already free of grass ... the designated spot for the bench site.

With considerable effort, we labored to remove the multitude of sod staples holding the weed barrier fabric in place, along with the weeds and grass that helped anchor it there. Finally, we had a clear 6 x 7 foot space that we hoped we could transform into a paved surface for the bench glider.

What we needed was flat, but what we had ... at best guess ... was a hillside angled at about 30 to 45 degrees. Couple this with the brick-like consistency of the red clay soil, which hadn’t seen rain in a couple of months, and our task did not look promising ... heck, it didn’t even look possible! I set to work with a hand mattock, Brian with a shovel, and we struggled to move rock-hard soil from the upper end of our slope, down to the lower end of it.

Neither of us ...naturally ... was able to locate the large carpenter’s level we own, which had spent much of the past year in the middle of the living room. You wouldn’t think something that big could just disappear ... be terminally misplaced ... just when it was needed most. Accusations ensued.

After verbal skirmishes best described as me, having a temper tantrum, Brian continued to work the site alone, while I sat inside and sulked. (This scenario may not be unusual in families where grown children still reside with a demanding parent.) Later, when Brian wasn’t looking, I checked out what he had ac- complished, and found he had done a pretty decent job, even without the level. So that was it for the first day.

During the week that followed, I purchased two types of weed barrier fabric, a few more keyhole-shaped pavers, and an 8" x 8" tamper. The bags of paver’s sand I wanted proved too heavy for me to lift ... no surprise there ... so I was forced to ask Brian if he could ple-e-ease bring home paver’s sand before the weekend. I always want things done yesterday, while Brian leans towards day-after tomorrow. But ... eventually ... he complied.

On the following Sunday, with a truce in place, we scampered up the hill to continue flattening our patio site. The tamper was a tremendous help. Nothing like taking out your aggressions on something that can’t fight back! When we felt satisfied with the results of vigorously banging loose soil ... the consistency of crumbled brick ... into a packed surface, we sprinkled paver’s sand over the entire surface and again, with gusto, applied the tamper.

Finally, the time seemed right to move on to the next step: the application of weed barrier fabric to our carefully flattened site. I had already made the decision to cover the area with two different types of weed barrier that I have used separately on other projects. Weed-Block?, the product we used for our first layer, has proven excellent for preventing light from reaching the soil underneath it. It tears too easily to use alone for long-term use, so we layered a tougher, more fibrous weed barrier over it. Only a few sod staples were necessary to anchor these layers at the edges and corners, since the pavers would serve to hold the weed barrier firmly in place.

At last, our site was ready for the placement of the stones. What stones? Funny you should ask. Remember all those keyhole-shaped pavers I’ve been lugging home bit by bit for the last three years or so? The ones I’ve been arranging on the ground around the water garden (pig trough)? Well, guess what! Yep! The next step was cannibalizing the water garden area in order to pave the platform for our garden bench. You should have guessed! Why else would I waste so much space, walking you through the pig trough fiasco?

Even though the placement of the stones was the most interesting and exciting part of the building process, it was also the most labor-intensive. My part came first ... lifting the seven-pound pavers out of their current configuration, carrying them to the wheelbarrow, and aligning them inside it ... this was hard work for an old lady. My one attempt to push the loaded wheelbarrow was laughable. Brian had to be sum- moned, and the first of many difficult trips up the hillside began.

Not surprisingly, the job of lifting the paving stones out of the wheelbarrow and placing them neatly onto the weed barrier fabric was no easier than removing them from the water garden area had been. Moving up the steep hillside ... the stones became a sort of goal-oriented weight-lifting exercise. First we laid the edge pieces out, trying for square corners. Then, bit-by-bit, grueling-trip-by- grueling-trip up the hillside, we placed all the paving stones we could find into our grid. Oops! Twenty-six stones short! I’ve been accused of being a few bricks short of a load before, and here was the proof!

Disregarding the shortfall, we examined our ... almost ... completed project, and it was good. “Let’s bring up the bench,” suggested Brian ... finally enthusiastic. Yes ... by all means ... let’s get the po-o-or old mother, who has been working out with weights all afternoon, to help carry the two-ton bench glider up the steep hillside.

Well, that was fun! Did you know that gliders continue to glide, even ... especially ... while being carried up a steep hill by an old lady and her long-suf- fering compadre? This did not seem like an advantage! Somehow, though, in spite of the weight, the glide, and the grade, we made it to the top of the hill. Yes! The eagle has landed!

Monday, it was back to Lowe’s for the last twenty-six paving stones. Pavers, I might add, that languished in the trunk of my car until the following weekend, when Brian could participate by pushing them up the hill towards their final destination.

I don’t know about you, but I have found that doing and dreaming work well together. There is a kind of magic in taking that first step on your own journey of a thousand miles. Opening yourself up to a blind trust in the process ... moving close to the edge of what you feel is impossible ... then stepping out onto untested ground and giving life your best shot. Sometimes, perhaps, you will have to make do with a pig trough. But once in a while ... once in a while ... you soar …