Greenwood Heights Backyard
« Messing with the bull, get ready for the horns! Crack that pad! The back yard demo begins. »
September 29, 2008
Still waiting on our man, might as well get moving.
While we waited to get our agreement signed, sealed and delivered from our friendly neighborhood developer, we scheduled the start date with Your Way Contracting, confirmed the revised design with Fun City Design and started our own part of the job: moving 50+ container plants, outdoor furniture, pulling plants and prepping the garden for day one's demo.
Diagram: where stuff has to go.
Whew! It was much harder than we expected, but sweat equity pays off in the end, right?
(even more to follow in the spring)
Essentially we had to move any and all plants, rocks, materials, etc. that would get in the way of the demo, regrading for the paths or the remaking of our new patio/seating area/pathways.
We started with a major plant pulling, unfortunately ending part of our veggie garden's end-of-the-season growing time, but we had a bountiful summer.
Photo: tomatoes have to go, it's been a good harvest.
The easiest (conceptually) was to move the container plants, where to place them was another thing. Most went to the extreme right and left sides of the yard. Some went to our front porch (change of scenery) next to the shed/construction fence and others took a vacation next door to our friendly neighbor's yard.
Photo: plants are all "ganged up" (wearing only one color).
Then there was the dismantling of our compost pile (into black contractor bags, recommended by the arborist/master composter at Green-Wood), moving of the blue stone for reuse in the pathways and moving buckets full of fieldstone/glacial stone that we intent to use in our water feature and to accent areas of the garden (gotta love all that stone, and it all came out of our garden!) to an area behind our shed.
Photo: one of many piles of blue stone.
Sore arms, legs and backs over the 2 day move (with help from a few friends) and we have a pretty clean slate from where we started back when the reno blog began.
Photo: Right hand side of the yard all cleared and moved.
Photo: A clean patio for a messy demo (and a very lonely grill).
Next up, getting that check from you know who, our cash from the bank and day one of demo by Your Way. Stay tuned.
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Comments
Hello, Your garden looks wonderful! I'd appreciate any information you might gave gained regarding party walls. I am wondering if there are any the laws about how high you can build a garden wall. Also, do you know how deep you have to go under ground in building retaining walls for raised beds? I have to build a wall between me and my neighbors yard which backs up against mine. Thanks
Posted by: birdsnpondlady at March 22, 2009 5:32 PM
Thanks. Now that it's spring we cannot wait to get planting.
Code in NYC is 8 ft tall maximum for garden walls/fences/dividers. Many folks try to cheat this, so it's up to you if it affecting you or your wall to your neighbors.
Our raised bed is approx 28 Inches tall, comfy for sitting. It is constructed out of block, cultured stone and a blue stone cap ( http://www.brownstoner.com/Greenwood_Heights_Backyard/archives/2008/11/stone_and_gravel_galore_days_five_and_si.html ). The back is the new condo's brick wall in the back and the bottom is earth.
You could easily build your wall in the back, then a raised ben off of it OR put up a partition/fence and build a free standing raised bed (which we had planned to do on the left side of our yard, but $$ ran out). Good luck!
Posted by: tikihouse at March 27, 2009 3:54 PM
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