I'm happy with the results, so I thought I'd share.
We have a fair amount of land that backs up to what used to be a forest. As a result, a lot of the land was sloped. We decided to excavate that area and put in a retaining wall with a patio, water feature/creek, tiered vegetable garden and a courtyard on the side of the house along with our existing patio.
So, here are the results with pics from my iPhone. I'll get better pics once it's done.
Pic 1. The dog just started checking it out.
Pic 2. Better lighting.
There's still a lot of planting to do, cleanup, sod, leveling, etc. etc. The areas that look like sand will be covered with sod or flower beds. A solid 3 more days of work, easily, but it's starting to come together.
[edit]
Put down the mulch, new pine straw in areas, planted all the trees, flowers, etc. There's still some more work to do, but it's coming together.
The areas look sparse now, but in a new growing season everything will look more lush. Just takes a little time.
Overall shot. Again, once everything grows you won't be seeing much of the pine mulch.
Closer shot of the steps, pansies and the wall itself. If you look closely, you can see we actually put some plants in the wall itself. Given a little time, it should be a nice look.
That's it for now. I have to refrain from seeing more things to do. I'm going to leave it as is for a while.
[/edit]
We have a fair amount of land that backs up to what used to be a forest. As a result, a lot of the land was sloped. We decided to excavate that area and put in a retaining wall with a patio, water feature/creek, tiered vegetable garden and a courtyard on the side of the house along with our existing patio.
So, here are the results with pics from my iPhone. I'll get better pics once it's done.
Pic 1. The dog just started checking it out.
Pic 2. Better lighting.
There's still a lot of planting to do, cleanup, sod, leveling, etc. etc. The areas that look like sand will be covered with sod or flower beds. A solid 3 more days of work, easily, but it's starting to come together.
[edit]
Put down the mulch, new pine straw in areas, planted all the trees, flowers, etc. There's still some more work to do, but it's coming together.
The areas look sparse now, but in a new growing season everything will look more lush. Just takes a little time.
Overall shot. Again, once everything grows you won't be seeing much of the pine mulch.
Closer shot of the steps, pansies and the wall itself. If you look closely, you can see we actually put some plants in the wall itself. Given a little time, it should be a nice look.
That's it for now. I have to refrain from seeing more things to do. I'm going to leave it as is for a while.
[/edit]