A place to stand

Back in the garden this weekend after more than 10 days, and the cool weather inspired me to do some digging. As most of these projects go, we start with a quite boring "before" photo:

This is the point where the original walkway to the front door meets the driveway. As you may already know, I created the walkway that connects to the street a couple of years ago, but this is the path that we take when the car is parked on the driveway. It's awkward.

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I've realized this summer that we need more surface to stand upon, especially when trying to get groceries, luggage, or other cargo out of the car. Since I have plans to connect the foreground and background beds in this photo...

...I knew that I'd need to do something about this corner, which is hidden by the foreground plants in this image.

Luckily I had a few extra flagstones from the pond edge revision project:

And they fit amazingly well!

So I started digging:

The turf and soil were quite easy to remove...

...but it's amazing how much soil you actually need to take out to make the thick stones fit.

After getting the depth right and using some sand to level things out, a bit of the limestone "screenings" in the cracks locked everything into place:

Then it was just a matter of packing, refilling with more screenings, and repeating a few times.

The final step was to wash everything down:

That not only makes it look better by removing all of the white dust, but it locks all of the particles together.

This is going to make a big difference when exiting the car, especially if we get quite a bit of snow again this winter.

My only concern, and it's a slight one, is that I might want this to be a bit larger to give us even more space. That's easily done though, as there's room for expansion.

I'm not sure if I'll get around to digging the planting beds this fall or if it will be a spring project. I expect it will be decided on a whim, on a day when I'm trying to avoid my fall garden chores (like bamboo rhizome pruning).

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