Summer is gone for another year and the pool is once again closed for the fall. This year we've been concentrating on the back yard plantings, now that we have a pool fence to provide some deterrence for the grazing deer. They ravage nearly everything we plant so we've resorted to netting to protect plants in the front yard. Although they're more than capable, they haven't jumped the fence yet, and I'm hoping they don't learn that they can.
We've purchased new patio furniture for around the pool from Polywood. It's made of recycled plastics so it should last a good long time with minimal maintenance. I've also installed two large cantilever umbrellas for shade. The surrounding forest provides some shade throughout the arc of the sun, but for most of the day, the deck area sees a good amount of intense light. We didn't want to have ground bases for the umbrellas and don't foresee repositioning them, so opted for in-ground installations.
We purchased two steel in ground bases and secured them with 600 lbs of concrete each so hopefully they won't be going anywhere. They can be removed from the base for winter storage, or we could purchase covers.
We planted part of the bed surrounding the pool and will finish the rest of the plantings next year. This year, we started with some low ground cover and slightly higher poppy mallow with the thought of planting taller shrubs towards the sides.
This year decided to implement the stairs going down to the basement walkouts and the paver patio at the rear basement door. The retaining wall near the gazebo would need to be extended a bit to enclose one side of the stairs, and the pool retaining wall that was installed last year would also have to be extended, but with similar limestone block rather than mire boulders.
Here's the shipment of caramel mint stones that will make up the retaining wall and steps. In the retaining wall on the front of the house, we opted for cast concrete steps that look like natural stone, mostly for the price, but also for the ease of installation. This time around, we decided to use the natural stone for the steps.
The wall was modified a bit to straighten and extend towards where it would intercept the stairs. There's still a little gap between the two but that can be covered with mulch or planted with ground cover. The steps went in pretty quickly with the right equipment.
Here's a shot of the stairs being installed. They did almost all of the work with this one machine, but had a skid steer to bring the stone and gravel to the construction area.
Here's another look at the final stair installation. Some of the old stone from previous wall installations were used on the left side to extend the boulder wall constructed for the pool. It will make it much nicer to get down this hill.
Here's a shot of the path going to the storage room under the back patio. The stone is a crushed limestone and is jagged, not like a rounded pea gravel. The jagged texture helps keep the stone in place, and makes it a little easier to walk on.
Here's a shot of the patio off the back walkout with the base stone installed. For the installation of the steps and this area, I had to remove a few of the pool fence posts that had been temporarily installed last year. For temporary safety, we installed orange barrier fencing across the opening that could be removed when work was being performed. The fence posts closest to the house had to stay installed since they were cemented in and never temporary. They sit in a small planting bed that will be mulched and eventually planted. You can see a short length of black irrigation pipe near the fence that passes under the path going through the pool gate. This will allow us to pass low voltage wiring for landscape lighting, a task we plan to tackle next year.
Here's what the blue stone looks like as it comes from the stone supply house. This is enough stone for the path and back patio. They are very large pieces that will need to be broken down a bit for installation since moving and installing these stones this size would be difficult.
This what the stone looks installed with the wet laid concrete. Often, these stones are dry laid, but our installer wet installs the with concrete and fills the gap with Gator dust, a large aggregate polymer sand. We'll see how this holds up over the years, but hopefully it will last since it's a bit more difficult to repair than just sand or gravel joints.
Here's the blue stone path installed but not joint filled. We did catch that the left side of the path doesn't quite reach the edge of the stairs. We didn't really catch it until after most of the path was installed, but Robert Thomas came back and added a piece in there to make it look complete. The left of the path will have a planting bed, but will also need a small access pathway to the pool equipment.
Here's the back patio installed. We'll eventually have a path leading off the left side of the patio going to an eventual patio off the side basement walkout. We're trying of budget this for next year, but we're entertaining also installing a hot tub in this area as well so we'll need to budget for additional electrical and equipment.
That's it for this well overdue update. There are a few things that I would still like to complete this year and I'll post them if or when I can get them done but this year has been a good one for progress.
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