Autumn Leaves have fallen...

The leaves are down and our yard was carpeted with them!  I took pictures before Dan started to clean them up.

 Everything is coated with leaves! My garden fairy looks cute sitting in the pot with leaves all around her- I had to take a picture!

 The sweet alyssum is still blooming

 So is the Sweet Autumn Clematis

 My garden statue stands among the heap of dead plants and leaves.  

 A cobbled set of stairs my husband and a friend created when we were doing the flagstone patio.  I thought they looked like they were a hundred years old yesterday and made for an interesting picture.

 They are at the end of this long half wall we had built many years ago.  This land has a continueous downward slop.   The original owners left it natural but the dirt was right up next to the side of the garage which rotted the wood.  We had our septic field rebuilt and while the bulldozer was there we had him swing around back and make us a path.  Then we had the wall built and replaced the siding.

 I finally gave in and removed the rest of the annuals so everything is now empty.

 Objects like this will go into the storage barn for the winter.

 What a mess of leaves! They're everywhere!

 I would have bet money these roses were never going to open up!  This is why I don't gamble!!

 Love the silvery tassles of this grass.

 We have a new species of shrubs- they grown their own brown leaves!

 The Weeping Mulberry tree made for a nice picture!

 The leaves of this Japanese Maple are just about to fall off but their color is so striking I had to take a picture!

 Leaves...leaves and more leaves!

 It's pretty to see but if we don't remove them our lawn will be ruined and it will get ugly quickly!

 These old Double File Viburnums have all been forgotten about.  They were transplanted here when we put on our new addition in 1996.  Their color struck me as interesting yesterday.

 Dan against the leaves-  it's a losing battle at times!

Are you familiar with the "Cat in the Hat" book by Dr. Seuss?  Do you remember the crazy contraption the cat brought in that was for cleaning up the house after he nearly destroyed it!  I've always said that this device with Dan's garden tractor reminded me of that crazy machine

Snicker....

It certainly makes a shorter job of cleaning up the leaves!

Hmm...where are Thing 1 and Thing 2 when you need them!

This old tree broke in half one year....needless to say it was dead and I talked Dan into leaving it for the birds...as you can see they've made good use of it!

It's big enough for me to stick my hand in but I didn't have the guts to!!  We have a Pileated Woodpecker that visits a lot.  I think he's resonsible for most of the larger holes on this tree.

 The sun was in and out all day and we actually got up to 80 degrees.  That was primarily why we spent a Thursday doing yard work that we would normally have done on a weekend.

 Almost done out front!

 The back is cleaned up now too!

This looks like an ad for John Deere don't you think!  He filled and dumped 10 loads of finely chopped leaves.  20 years ago we raked, and drug the leaves out on a tarp but after the new tractor came into our lives so did some new handy gadgets!  This was the largest garden tractor we could get without going into the higher priced diesels.  It's all hydrostatic controlled. 

Now after all the credit I've given to Dan I don't want you to think I wasn't doing anything! That's my corner I worked at through the day.  I emptied the dirt from all my planters and set them over here and washed them up for storage.  I got them all put in the garage too!  The three big planters in front of the garage are still there. Those plants are still strong and hearty so I decided they look nice for now and I'm leaving them for a bit longer.  I would bring things like this inside if I had room, but I don't!

I make a pile out back and in the spring I reuse it.  I buy that pre-fertilized potting soil in the bags but since some of my pots are so large I fill them with the old soil first and then top them off with some new.

The last thing we have to do is cover the lawn furniture.  I think we're about ready for the winter now!

Are you ready!!

In The Beginning.....

In the beginning, there was a pond..... then there was not!

In 1999 when we created the flagstone patio area, we installed a small pre-formed pond...which grew into a much larger area complete with a small creek and many plantings around it to naturalize it.....but it was a lot of maintenance so finally we decided to remove it.  The big hole is where it was.

~jump forward~

Spring 2009     The John Deere garden tractor with it's mini front end loader has paid for itself with all the projects it's done for us.  I am glad my husband is so handy with using it and makes my big projects happen with a great deal less back labor than it would have otherwise!

 Work, work, work, work, work...

Finally after much pushing dirt around the area is starting to be created for the new fountain....

  We poured a 5" thick cement pad to receive the new fountain... (It's somewhere in the 880 lb. range, in 4 pcs)

 I laid landscape fabric along the edges to keep it from eroding.....

 Now comes the fun, tricky part, bringing in the base of the fountain...

Dan calculated this out to the T...I stood by ready to aid whenever I could....

 Ahh, the base is in place and now the fun begins!

All the pieces are in place and the electric is being set up....This fountain is made by Campania, it's called Palazzo Urn Fountain.. we lucked out at a garden center that had it carried over from the year before, we offered several hundred dollars less for cash and carry and they accepted!

Yay it works!

This is with the stone wall installed before the flagstones were set in place... The timeline of the project was May 1st thru July 2nd... My husband and I did all the work ourselves (and we aren't as young as we used to be....LOL) so we did a little bit of work every night, trying not to push our backs too hard...

Now the flagstones are in place and we brush what we call diamond dust (which is crushed stone into a very fine size) into the crevices.... sprinkle with water and after a while it firms up a bit....

And now it's done...and my newly stained and painted park benches are in place....

After a few months the plants have filled in nicely...

This was summer of 2009, a rather cool summer, but my transplanted Hostas appreciated the cool temperatures and didn't even act like they had been split up and transplanted!

All these hostas were larger plants I split up...I lined the edge of the wall with pink impatiens...they filled in nicely!

This is late in the summer....and things have settled in nicely...we are so happy with the changes we made…

  

A collage of the original patio area

This is a collage of pictures of the original creation of the patio with pond.  The 2nd picture on the right reveals the area where it started- a previous location of an above ground pool.  We put a base of sand down then gravel to aid with moisture and frost heaving issues in the spring.  As you can see above a lot has changed since then.  I finally gave up on the grass path because it was difficult to maintain.  We installed more flagstone on the path after we did the new addition for the water fountain.  There are low voltage lights around the patio too and all the electrical for the pond/now fountain was run through a trench Dan dug with piping to protect it.