stone

It’s almost planting season here in Central Texas, but to keep me from jumping the gun, I’m starting my winter hardscaping project.  Winter is the perfect time to work on the bones of the garden — getting everything ready for the fun to come.

 

This was the path/dry creek when it was at its best with native stone that we collected from our property.  But over the years, the rock has been kicked around, gotten buried with soil and mulch and the side rocks  have moved out of place and gotten scraggly looking. So, yesterday my crew came here to start on this year’s main hardscape project.

They moved the existing flagstone and river rock and I outlined the new, curving shape.

Then they dug a deep trench and put in a French drain – perforated pipe with a sock on it to prevent soil from getting inside of it.  A flood of rain water comes across our driveway from our neighbor’s house and we have two downspouts that empty onto the driveway.  We (that would be the royal we) also buried the one downspout at the entrance of the creek.  This will allow the water to rush on down the path and empty into the end of the path in the woods.  This is where it normally puddles, because there isn’t much of a slope down the creek, it also backs up onto the edge of the driveway by about 4 feet by 4 feet, leaving a dirty, wet mess when it rains.

I also brought in moss rock to match the two most recent dry creek projects that we’ve updated the last two years.  You can see those projects here and here. The big, beautiful rocks along the sides are moss rock – they have great markings and lots of character and color and, yes, some mossy stuff.

At the beginning of the path, the crew had to use a chipping hammer to get out some big rocks to create a large rock basin that will help absorb the leftover water when it’s a light rain or it stops flowing.  Now it will be in the creek bed instead of in the dip on our driveway.  (Don’t get me started on the architect/builder that created this problem by not adequately assessing the drainage issue!)

Today we’re putting in some more pipe, placing some medium-sized Oklahoma stone and the final 1-3″ river rock and flagstone stepping stones.  I’m out digging and placing the decorative rocks, because they have to be just so to give it a more natural look.

So much for having the day off!