The Posh Estate #2

One Posh Estate keeps me working two days a week with only a short lull in the dead of winter. Now they have two Posh Estates. The transformation has already begun.

The interior was very dated, late 50's to early 60's and some of the tile work and light fixtures were so hideous they were beautiful. Any gardens had long since vanished and grass was growing right up to the foundation all the way around. We can't have that at the Posh Estate #2.

That big patch of brown was a green lawn a month ago. I sprayed it and killed it. The entire space will become beds with a central fountain, paths and benches surrounded by a short formal clipped holly hedge.

This garden will be the first thing you see when you come to visit. It has to be gorgeous.

The same kill all the grass and turn it into beautiful beds filled with blooming shrubberies and perennials is happening on the kitchen side of the house. The green stripe through the middle will be a grass path, possibly a grass between pavers path, from the back garage door to the kitchen door.

A near sixty foot long row of daylilies will be turned into a much wider perennial bed. The row of daylilies will get broken up.

You can see my new bed outline sprayed into the lawn. I kill the grass, cover it with mulch and plant. That is all unless I should decide to add some manure or compost under the mulch first. There is no need to remove the grass. Sprayed and buried it will decompose and add its organic matter to the soil just fine. Earthworms will do all the tilling.

Just what I needed, another fish pond to take care of. It needs a bit of work. The pond had been completely filled with rocks so there was no pond really. It has two stream/falls flowing into the same rock filled pond from one pump. I don't really care for the one on the left with St. Francis perched on top. It's too tall and too out of scale and place, a hideous pile of rocks.

The other stream/fall is a bit better, but it needs a more artistic eye in setting the rocks. But first and foremost it has no skimmer and no filtering system. If you want fish, the water has to be cleaned. Then today I was instructed to make the pond bigger by expanding on the back side.

What had been a make the pond work has now been turned into a major rebuild of the whole thing.

When we got started a month ago nobody knew there was a huge drift of rhododendrons on this slope. They were completely buried in the Lush. Only when the weed whacking started were they discovered.

Out on the perimeter surrounding the property are an array of incredible, mature arborvitae, chamaecyparis, spruce and other conifers. That cloud pruning job is totally natural and possibly 50 years or more older.

It is a big job and a most interesting challenge to make a second Posh Estate. Fortunately is is pretty much next door to Posh Estate #1. I just have no idea where it will fit into an already fully booked schedule. All I can do is take it one day at a time.

Eventually I'll get around to killing off a big chunk of this useless lawn with a teeny tiny island bed in the middle. What's up with that idiotic bed in a giant lawn?

But I will say it sure feels good to come home to the wild cultivated gardens where no one will notice if I miss a few weeds. I can't have any weeds. I don't have any proper beds.

I have a tiny house surrounded by a big and bodacious Tall Flower Meadow in a riot of bloom. That is alright by me.