The Front Yard Makeover

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Before groundbreaking you should take stock of any plantings you want to preserve.  Even if the plants will not be part of the new landscape you may want to find a home for some favorite perennials in another part of your property.  If you set some plants aside for transplanting into the new landscape make sure you store them in a manner that will allow for daily watering and necessary sun exposure.  The only plantings we kept were some fountain grass and a number of Black-eyed Susans.  A wheelbarrow provided mobility and a means of keeping moisture intact. 

Soon enough it was ground breaking time.  Willco was very careful to make sure their tools and heavy machinery only disturbed the part of the lawn being landscaped.  The rest of the lawn remain mercifully undisturbed and survived the project quite nicely.

Once the ground was appropriately graded work began on the new walkway.  Choices for walkway material are limited only by imagination.  Consideration was given to concrete, loose stone and flagstone but in the end we chose Pavestone Plaza tumbled pavers.  This brick-like material is extremely durable, attractive and a very good value.  Our brick chimney is a very prominent part of our landscape and we wanted to make sure the walkway and chimney suited each other.  This was somewhat challenging as the old bricks of the chimney are not uniform in color and of course are attractively weather-worn.  The availability of so many Pavestone colors made it much easier to create a suitable color pattern.  Tumbled pavers (kind of like stone-washed jeans) provided that all important instant lived-in look.

The foundation for the walkway (above left) included a base of several inches of AB3 (a limestone rock and crushed rock mixture) topped with a layer of clean sand.  Once the foundation is leveled the pavers are set in place in the desired pattern (above right).  Careful installation means continuously making sure the pavers are level or following the desired grade.

The finished walkway (surrounded by as yet unfinished garden) is the first sign that we are headed toward something beautiful.

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