Pati-whoa!
One day, about a year ago, Dean was mowing the lawn, and it struck me that it was really a pain in the neck, because he'd have to move all of the furniture on to the driveway or drag it around as he was mowing. At the same time, we had a big barren spot next to our driveway where some wood had waited quite patiently to be chopped and stacked. The furniture and grill naturally seemed to locate over there, and thus, the idea to turn the area into a dedicated patio space was born. Our finances were too tight to think of doing anything last year, but when spring rolled around, we realized we had a small amount of money that could at least get us started. At the same time, we had also acquired a small fire bowl, so the patio concept expanded to include a "fire pit" area.
The "easiest" thing to do would have been for us to just contact a landscaper and have them do it. But our budget wouldn't really cover that expenditure, so I decided we could do it ourselves. In typical weasel fashion, I assumed the process would be:
1. Dig up grass (maybe 12 hours)
2. Put down landscaping cloth (2 hours)
3. Put down pea gravel, rake out to make patio. (2-4 hours)
Easy-peasy, right? I could knock it out in just a couple of weekends, if I tried. So one nice weekend in May, I marked out the space I wanted, and decided to begin.
Yes, those weeds are taller than the patio table.
The first thing I realized was that I had somehow chosen to ignore the rather large pile of rocks on the upper right side. These all had to be moved before anything could really be done. So most of my first day was spent schlepping rocks around to the front of the house (where Dean has some ongoing landscaping projects). Still, by the time I was ready to quit, I'd gotten started with edging the fire pit. I began to notice however, that the "digging" part of the equation was not as quick a process as I'd hoped. Somewhere in our backyard is the skeletal remains of an in-ground pool. The area I'm trying to dig up seems to be filled with patio stone already. Not enough that it would be usable, but just enough that it makes it a pain in the neck to dig out.
After maybe 6 hours of digging, I'd made far less progress than I'd hoped.
In addition, you can see that I'd started to realize that the weed patch between our house and the neighbors house was going to be formidable. Just in case you didn't really look at it that closely in the first picture, here's another view of the mess that was there:
This was a patch of creeper vines, grape vines, and miscellaneous weeds that were taller than me. I realized I needed to clear all of this out before I proceeded, because the creeper vines were choking off the trees that I was counting on to shade our patio area. What followed was probably 20 hours of backbreaking bushwhacking. At one point, my neighbor, Dean and I were all hanging on different vines, trying to get them ripped out. Once we got the above-ground stuff cleared, I then had to wrestle with the underground root systems. Mixed in among all of this has been a hodgepodge of patio "treasures", such as the rusted brake rotor, the shattered sink, and one spring that *thankfully* did NOT turn out to be attached to a full mattress!
Here's where I am today. As you can see, the weeds are pretty much gone. I'm still finding it very slow going though, bc although I already removed a mess of roots, I'm still coming across them as I dig. The other issue is the rock piles. Here's one pile I made in a very short time of digging.
That's just the ones that are "worth" pulling aside, lol.
And Dean's pointed out that my steps are a little off. What needs to *really* go on is:
1. Finish digging out the patio area.
2. Figure out the high point. Determine what areas need a retaining wall to bring them up to that level, and figure out how big it needs to be.
3. Install retaining wall.
4. Smooth out dirt levels as much as possible.
5. Put down landscaping cloth.
6. Put down pea gravel
7. Rake gravel level
This is going to take four years, isn't it?!!!!
The "easiest" thing to do would have been for us to just contact a landscaper and have them do it. But our budget wouldn't really cover that expenditure, so I decided we could do it ourselves. In typical weasel fashion, I assumed the process would be:
1. Dig up grass (maybe 12 hours)
2. Put down landscaping cloth (2 hours)
3. Put down pea gravel, rake out to make patio. (2-4 hours)
Easy-peasy, right? I could knock it out in just a couple of weekends, if I tried. So one nice weekend in May, I marked out the space I wanted, and decided to begin.
Yes, those weeds are taller than the patio table.
The first thing I realized was that I had somehow chosen to ignore the rather large pile of rocks on the upper right side. These all had to be moved before anything could really be done. So most of my first day was spent schlepping rocks around to the front of the house (where Dean has some ongoing landscaping projects). Still, by the time I was ready to quit, I'd gotten started with edging the fire pit. I began to notice however, that the "digging" part of the equation was not as quick a process as I'd hoped. Somewhere in our backyard is the skeletal remains of an in-ground pool. The area I'm trying to dig up seems to be filled with patio stone already. Not enough that it would be usable, but just enough that it makes it a pain in the neck to dig out.
After maybe 6 hours of digging, I'd made far less progress than I'd hoped.
In addition, you can see that I'd started to realize that the weed patch between our house and the neighbors house was going to be formidable. Just in case you didn't really look at it that closely in the first picture, here's another view of the mess that was there:
This was a patch of creeper vines, grape vines, and miscellaneous weeds that were taller than me. I realized I needed to clear all of this out before I proceeded, because the creeper vines were choking off the trees that I was counting on to shade our patio area. What followed was probably 20 hours of backbreaking bushwhacking. At one point, my neighbor, Dean and I were all hanging on different vines, trying to get them ripped out. Once we got the above-ground stuff cleared, I then had to wrestle with the underground root systems. Mixed in among all of this has been a hodgepodge of patio "treasures", such as the rusted brake rotor, the shattered sink, and one spring that *thankfully* did NOT turn out to be attached to a full mattress!
Here's where I am today. As you can see, the weeds are pretty much gone. I'm still finding it very slow going though, bc although I already removed a mess of roots, I'm still coming across them as I dig. The other issue is the rock piles. Here's one pile I made in a very short time of digging.
That's just the ones that are "worth" pulling aside, lol.
And Dean's pointed out that my steps are a little off. What needs to *really* go on is:
1. Finish digging out the patio area.
2. Figure out the high point. Determine what areas need a retaining wall to bring them up to that level, and figure out how big it needs to be.
3. Install retaining wall.
4. Smooth out dirt levels as much as possible.
5. Put down landscaping cloth.
6. Put down pea gravel
7. Rake gravel level
This is going to take four years, isn't it?!!!!