The Concrete Garden

 Six inches of concrete over the course of 30 feet of sidewalk adds up to a lot of concrete.

Also, it turns out that getting rid of concrete is difficult, expensive, and requires special permits...

I had been thinking of adding a garden on this corner in the fall.

 And I had always liked the idea of a garden berm.

And I don't mind when my entire family collectively rolls their eyes at me when I suggest a new garden.

So I spray painted the outline of a garden, and we dumped the concrete there.

Then I ordered a couple of cubic yards of compost and had the truck dump it directly on the concrete.

 July is a horrible time to start a garden here because it's so hot and usually so dry.  So I mostly put in some annuals in the hopes that they would grow quickly and hold the soil in place.

I knew already that the plants all need to be fairly low growing so that drivers can see around the corner, and I already knew a few of the plants I wanted there.

When my local Home Depot had peach Drift roses on clearance, I nabbed two of them!

Come fall, I'll separate a bunch of my perennials, from other gardens and plant up this corner garden properly.

I'll probably add a few new bulbs and other plants, because I just can't get enough of the family collective eye roll really love plants!

Where the Sidewalk Ends

 We had been having problems with the little sidewalk that ran from our driveway to our house.  It was cracked and it flooded badly whenever it rained.

What a great summer project!

It's only 30 feet (10 meters) long, so not too big a job.

 Ha ha!

The first problem was that the original concrete was six inches thick.  That's at least double what I had expected.

And, while hard on the surface, the interior was crumbly, which turns out to be difficult when you are using a jackhammer (you only get little bits at a time instead of big chunks).

Honestly, we ended up out sourcing that part of the job after a frustrating half day.







Next up was laying a sand base.

Then tamping to flatten and smooth it.

Then it was time to mix and pour the concrete pavers.

 We decided to do pavers to give us better drainage, but an extra bonus was that it looks great with the garden!

And lastly we filled in the spaces between pavers with polymeric sand.

It took the whole week, but we're delighted with the new path!