Garden Boxes

This summer we are taking on a big project: our entire backyard.  We've known it has needed work since we moved in almost 3 years ago.  But something else was always more important, in the way, needed to be done first, or too financially straining.  This year we decided that it is our yard year.  We are one of the absolute lowest houses in our pretty huge neighborhood.  We actually kind of sit in a ravine.  There is literally a 15-20 foot cliff back behind our fence that leads up to the next neighborhood, hence why there is a creek back there.  You can imagine all the water we get in our backyard when it's rainy.  So last year (or the year before?) we installed french drains that connected our gutters and driveway/front yard runoff to the creek.  That helped a lot.

This year we are building garden boxes where we get some of the heavier runoff.  We chose a place where the rain flows well and wouldn't just be standing water.  Hopefully it should take a small dent out of our water problem.

Since our builder completely stripped our property of its topsoil, we are going to be installing 30+ tons of it ourselves and then seeding zoysia to match the front yard.  Zoysia requires seeding at the hottest time of the year.  Yay for working in the worst possible NC heat!  We're so excited!  Hopefully having lots of grass should help with drainage as well.

"Hi Daddy.  This is so much fun.  Do you need help with that?  Don't mind me here.  This isn't awkward at all."

Hopefully we are not the only parents who have experienced this.  ;)