The Wharf

 We are calling this hardscape project "The Warf" because the pilings we sank along the edge to define the space look big enough to dock the Titanic.  This is the last step that finishes off our big dry creek bed project.  We have done a lot of these.  It all started with The Big Drain which dealt with getting water off of our front yard to the buried culvert along the road.  Then we replaced mucky mulch on top of a French drain.  The mulch held too much water and had to be replaced with rock.  We wanted it to look natural so we created The Dry Creek Bed.

This turned out so well that we started looking to other areas of our lawn which were presenting a challenge.  We live on a flatish hilltop with wicked clay soil.  There are natural springs that pop up here and there.  When we switched to city water and stopped using our water well it was like all of the water just sat there.  It became impossible to mow some areas.  So we decided to abandon a large portion of the lawn outlined here in: A River Runs Through It

The River area turned out gorgeous: Up the Crick.  I planted a lot of grasses and perennials.  A Landscape Project  We love our dry creek beds.  Because of the current economic climate, we have not progressed with the greenhouse or building on the stone pad, but we needed to keep going with the stone because there is still a portion of the lawn which is impossible to mow half of the year.  Terrible.  Mucky.  Standing water.  Sod floating on top of water bubble sort of problem. Big ruts.  Dying plants in bed edges.  Yuck.  It even smells bad.  Like frog bellies.

We eased into the project by adding this flagstone "patio".  This fixed a bit of a traffic flow problem.  I had avoided that area and never walked all the way to the walkway.  I would jump up on the deck as soon as possible,  The flagstones are very inviting and I immediately began walking all the way to the walkway.  It made it look finished and not like the raw, neglected edge of another project.

Once we got over that hurdle, the remaining corner seemed easier to tackle. 

This gets us about to the crown of the backyard.  As square and flat as the lawn is you don't really see a "crown".  But there is one and the water was being trapped up against the RR ties of the stone pad.  We put down road stabilization mat to keep the rock from disappearing into the clay.  The pilings are the last of a huge telephone pole that we have used along the last River bed.  They are 17" in diameter and buried 20 inches into the ground.

To be honest, the clean gravel was such a huge improvement you could stop right here.  The curved edge is just so pretty and fixes the problem of the blunt ending of the RR ties.  It really dressed it up.  But wait... there's more!

The boulders were staged for invasion.  We got this truckload of boulders months ago.  The pile had to be sorted through.  My husband and the neighbor moved every rock sorting them by size into flat stones and round stones and picking out the prettier ones.  Even with a tractor, there is a lot of heavy lifting.  This is by no means the total of the load of boulders.  We've used some of the plainer rocks for other drainage issues, and there is still a sizeable assortment of rocks available for future use.

At this point it would be nice if there was a "drag and drop" feature in real life.
Point and click.

The Boulders are placed to form a "creek bed"
But we're not done yet.

We dug in a few planting areas for grasses and hosta.

There is #1 crushed gravel at the bottom, but the rocks just perch on top of that.  We shoveled in a lot of #2 washed stones to bed down the rocks so they are emerging from the gravel, not sitting on top.  For the last two projects we bought truckloads of "bank run" which have a variety of smaller rocks (softball size).  But this project really wasn't big enough for a truckload of bank run.  But Dad has a creek...

We recruited the neighbor to help pick up rocks.
This is beautiful bank run.

This is where my love of all things galvanized paid off.
When I told my husband I could round up six or seven washtubs he almost didn't believe me

Again with the heavy lifting

Tub loads not truck loads

The softball sized rocks were scattered into area to give it more texture.
It is like painting a picture.   You have to add many layers to get the detail you want.

This new area improves the view from many angles.

Part of it is in shade for most of the day.  I planted Hosta in the shade and may add a bit more to the mulched portion of this corner.  But I'm not in a hurry to over plant.  I have enough to deal with in the river bed on the other side of the pad.  Both Hosta and Daylilies grow amazingly well but have to be constantly sprayed to keep the deer from ruining them.

The view from the house is really nice.  Time will tell if it has improved the mowing situation enough or if we will need to tweak it a bit more.