Putting up the Pavilion

This was the most exciting day... the pavilion was ready to be delivered & built!

I can't believe it only took them 1 day!

The building inspector came soon after to approve it- all went smoothly with that!

The builders did knock into the sundial and the bottom of the arrow broke off.  They immediately offered to pay for replacing that piece.  The piece is currently on back-order, so we will order it on our own when it is back in stock.

Catching up: Painting the Fence

We re-used the privacy fence in the backyard.  Since the new fence line is shorter than the old one, we picked out the best panels to install.  We no longer wanted the green fence, since it doesn't match with the new house colors. 

Step One: Scraping off the peeling paint

Step Two: Power Wash

It was kind of satisfying to see the paint come off with the power washer!

Step Three: Stain the fence

It looks so much nicer now!!!

We hung the hardware & gate on the gray fence, and the dog can now run free again!

More Plants for the Backyard

The landscaper arrived with some of the trees for the yard- they are the two Kousa Dogwoods that go in each corner behind the patio/pavilion.

We also have a cute bird residing in the birdhouse hanging on the fence!

With those trees planted (and a few other small bushes), the landscaper said we are at the top of the estimate he had given us- there had been more stonework/steps than he had originally anticipated.  

This was a bit disappointing- so much empty space that we thought would be filled with plants! But we decided that we can do the rest of the plantings ourselves and headed over to the garden center.

Spirea Bushes filled the back of the car!

We got herbs to make an herb garden inside the circle of boxwoods:

Spearmint, Italian Parsley, Foxley Thyme, Sweet Marjoram, Upright (pink flower) Rosemary, Berggarten Variegated Sage, Raspberry Dressing Rumex, Lemon Thyme, and Basil. 

Some additional plants that we picked up are:

10 Double Play Pink Spirea Bushes, 5 Japanese Andromeda bushes, Pincushion Flower, Garden Phlox, Digitalis, Astilbe, Balloon Flower, Blue Mirror Delphinium, Balmy Lilac Bee Balm, Pachysandra, and Variegated Weigela.

Other plants that we moved from other parts of the yard were Hostas, Lily of theValley, Coreopsis, Climbing Hydrangea, Azalea, Peonies, Lavender Bushes (some of these might not make it- they were a bit bedraggled).  There are a few others from our other gardens that we moved but can't remember the names of!

Next step is the landscaper bringing in a lot of mulch!

Armillary Sundial

We ordered the sundial online, once we picked out the pedestal.  It arrived a few days later...

We still need to position it correctly so that it will tell the time on sunny days.

Still not sure what to do with the bottom around the pedestal.  Ideally, I think I'd like to put the bluestone- but I realize that cutting it will be a big pain.  The landscaper wants us to plan thyme or some other low growing plant cover.  I don't like that idea because it will die back in the winter and look crappy.  Obviously can't leave it as it is... but I'm hesitant to do anything until we've thought it through.  

The landscaper put most of the boxwoods in place!

We still need more for up in the space between the wall and the patio.

Plants!

Right after we picked up the pedestal, a truck with plants arrived!

60 boxwoods!!!!

Our requirement on the boxwoods was that we didn't want the ones that smell like cat pee!

The landscaper suggested that we also need ones that are small and don't require too much trimming.

Here is the final selection:

Can't wait to see them placed & planted!

Garden Focal Point

It was a gloomy Sunday and the kids' sports events were cancelled due to thunderstorms, so we decided to take a ride to a garden center that has statues, fountains, and things like that for the garden.

We decided that we want a sundial to go in the middle of the brick, and have a few favorites picked out online.  We will need a pedestal to place it on.

After looking at a bunch, we selected this one for it's size & style (we needed something that would somewhat go with the colonial house!)

This photo also reminded me that I forgot to mention the big debate when moving the privacy fence... 

Due to the slope of the land, the privacy would need to be stepped down (even with the fill that the landscaper was going to be adding).  

The fence guys wanted to start to the right of the gate, then have it step down three times in sections of two panels each time.

Thank goodness Mike called me out to discuss! 

We decided we wanted three panels to be level with the three to the left of the gate.  Since the pavilion will eventually be centered there, we want the same number of panels level on each side of the gate.  That then left 4 panels that could be stepped down at the back end of the fence... two steps down, two panels each time.

I'm happy with the decision!  

But now back to the pedestal!

We're happy with the size, and now feel comfortable ordering the sundial for the top.

I'm not quite sure how we're going to finish around the bottom of it.

Here's the view looking from the house back to the well house...

And yes, we're still waiting on the roofer to show up.  I get worried about it leaking with every rain storm, but the tarp is holding tight so far. 

Finishing the Fence

The fence company came back and finished installing the new fence, and also moved the sections of the old privacy fence that we were keeping.  It used to follow the property line out, but we decided to move the line of the fence in and square it off with the house and the new patio.

 

The gate was originally planned to be one big piece, but I had concerns about it opening out to the driveway.  It definitely would have hit the car.  We decided to change it to be two pieces at the entrances from the driveway, and still the single big gate at the entrance to the back of the yard.

Here is the reverse of the gate closest to the house... 

Here is the single-door gate:

I love the heavy-duty hardware they used:

We had to leave two sections of the privacy fence open where it meets the new fence, so that the landscaper can still get in & out with the heavy equipment.  He still has some leveling to do and is going to add some fill dirt near the fence so that the dog will not escape!  Mike will do those last two sections himself.

So close...

Planting Plans

While waiting for the fence guys to come back, the landscaper came over and gave us the plans that he drew up for plantings in the garden.

Here's where we were with the hardscape plans:

Here are the planting plans:

We like most of the plants he chose.  We may decide to swap a couple of them out for some of our favorites that we already have.
-We had dug up a bunch of them and placed them safely in our fenced in veggie garden (which I just realized I never posted about building last year, so I'll have to come back to that in a future post!)
-I love lavender plants, however I'm not sure about filling in the insides of the boxwood garden around the sundial with them... I found this herb garden plan and think maybe I want to do something like that!  It seems more colonial :)

New Fence!

While all of the pathway stone & brick work was being completed, we were busy picking out our new fence for the inside of the yard (to replace the white picket fence that runs along the driveway).

We picked a square picket that goes with the Colonial style of the house.  Of course, the one we picked had to be custom made, so it took a while to get it.

They arrived on a Friday and installed most of it...

We LOVE it!  

Here's a shot of the corner post with the cap in place:

I was really impressed with the fence company's attention to detail... look at how they even cut the length of the pickets on an angle! They answered a ton of questions we had about putting in the gates, and gave us a selection of gate pulls to choose from.  

The fence guys will be back in a week to do the gates and the last panels of pickets in the back (we still need to be able to get the tractors in there for moving dirt right now).