This Year - Finally!

This is the year that I'll complete a dream of ten years. Landscaping!

Nine years ago I contracted a woman who lives in Flagstaff to advise me on landscaping. She is the author of multiple books and is an encyclopedia of knowledge. The day before our appointment she phoned and canceled. In hindsight this was fortuitous since it was a premature start on my part.

Over the last nine years I completed the master gardener program, took classes at the community college on rain water harvesting and passive solar design, built a greenhouse, gathered materials, experimented with some plants and tested some ideas. I've learned more from failures than successes.

Last year I built a wood shed and garage, designed and finished a stone patio, graded part of the yard, constructed some terraces and buried water lines for an irrigation system. The other major task was installation of a solid metal fence.

Gardening Fence

The fence serves multiple purposes. It extends into the ground and (after the gates are built) will keep animals out of the yard. Several years ago I planted a cactus in the yard. One day I noticed something had eaten most of the cactus. The next day I discovered the rest had been eaten and the roots had been dug out of the ground and consumed. While sitting on the deck in the dark I've had animals come onto the deck to eat potted plants.

In the photo above the top of a mound of soil is visible beyond the fence. Since the native soil is poor I bought the largest truck load of amended soil I could locate. In planting areas I'll replace the soil with this amened soil and add additional amendments.

Before planting I'll finish the irrigation system. I am harvesting irrigation water from the garage roof but need more collection area.  I have materials to construct a collector uphill from the yard.

I have the greenhouse ready for plantings, three compost piles, a supply of worm castings and a setup for compost tea. In the garden I have shrubs, flowers and tubers to transplant in the yard.

This week I've been going through catalogs to create orders for seeds and plants. I'll place orders within the next two weeks.

Everything is ready. This will be the summer!