The Children's Garden cont'd

I can not call this project the Wretched Wreck of a Deck anymore ... all the wretched decking is gone. In fact some of the floor joists were reused to build an arbor... more on that later, though I will say I am astounded anything from the deck was salvagable.

Any good project begins with a proper foundation. The foundation of this garden is the ivy esplanade at the back wall. I've built a harlequin patterned trellis wall. It doesn't extend entirely to the left corner as that area is where the gingerbread house goes.



Because I really hate spending large dollars on a simple nothing sort of project, instead of buying precut lattice strips, I ripped a 2"x3" into half inch strips. There are three 2"x3"s here -- at $1.47 each. Wild and crazy girl that I am, that trellis cost $4.41 plus tax. Total. Had I purchsed real lattice strips the cost would have been $57.60. (Because time equals money, it's worth noting that I cut all the lattice strips in 20 minutes. It would have taken longer than that to drive to Home Depot or Lowe's and back.)

Moving on.

The lattice has been painted, the soil just below the trellis has been ammended and ivy has been planted:



Grow Ivy, grow.

Wee little steps -- the next step is to add a load of soil -- the ground is really a hard, trampled, irregular mess back there. It might be solved with a rototiller -- but I don't have one. For the cost of renting a rototiller I can buy a load of dirt, which I need in other areas anyway

Now, back to the salvaged floor joists of the Wretched Deck Rip Out. An arbor has been built on the other side of the workshop. It has four salvaged posts and five salvaged windows. I've had this project in mind since I bought this house. I didn't know quite where the arbor would go, but I knew what it would look like:

I placed it here, to the left of the garage workshop, to visually balance the Children's Garden, situated in the space to the right of the garage workshop.

There is still so much work to be done. There is a pond to dig, a gingerbread house to build, a sandbox to install, plants to move in.... and this guy is awfully eager to move in and find a home in the new Children's Garden:


Meanwhile ... he'll just reach down there and snag a carrot or two to snack on.