Howdy all, hope everyone's doing okay in these crazy times!
Apologies for the huge delay between posts, we've been getting the roof redone at home so my time in the garden has been pretty limited as of late...but at last its done! Soooooo i used this past weekend as a chance to get back into it
Theres been a few changes since my last post, most notably the commencement of work on a level platform at the top of the stairs leading into the garden. I was able to use my trusty chain hoist and tripod to lift the two main (300kg +) rocks up the stairs over the course of a couple of days and then spent another day working at them with a grinder and chisels to roughly work the surfaces of both flat and level, though i still have to go back and refine them quite a lot more.
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I'm planning on fitting a third large rock in between them in either the front or the back and then infilling the remaining spaces with tightly fitted rocks like the crazy paving path that leads on from this area, although i've yet to go back to the rock yard to find the perfect pieces for it.
Looking up to it from further back in a yet to be worked on section of the garden i think you can start to sort of get an idea of how the path flows up from the platform....even if things are a bit of a mud pit at the moment!
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The other big update has been this weekends addition of another large 500kg rock at one of the bends in the path, as part of a plan to further restrict the views to the rest of the garden from the path and to help create more variation in levels throughout the garden.
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Once i've added more rock around this main one i'll be building the soil level up behind them to turn it into a planted up embankment.
My plan so far is to plant either a japanese black or red pine just behind this new rock and to train some branches down around it to help soften things whilst developing the main branching over the path to really give more of an enveloping feel when you're walking under it.
As well as that i'm thinking of planting quite a lot more enkianthus, deciduous azaleas and maybe some more camellias or maples into the embankment to give more of a woodland feel to things...but thats still quite a long ways off yet.
On a lesser note i've also done a little more work to further refine some of the rockwork and plantings lining the path on either side, with a few more enkianthus peralatus for reliable red autumn colour and enkianthus campanulatus for oranges and golds + the obligatory mondo and liriope to help retain the steep slopes. Once things have settled in a little more i'll start adding more moss to the plantings to bring them into line with the more established areas.
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Anyways, thanks for following along, I hope its not getting too repetitive!
Cheers,
Damien