Daily Home Renovation Tips

In Part 6  of this series of articles about the makeover of our front gardens we had finished reshaping the main front garden per the garden planner’s plan for our property, removed all plants that were not going to remain in the new garden, and were now ready to start transplanting.

However, before we could do that we needed  to receive additional dirt. Why?

Take a look at this picture. Notice the moss that had begun to grow throughout many parts of the main front garden close to the  garage wall (in amongst the weeds). This was caused by continual excess water remaining on the garden bed as a result of a combination of too much watering, insufficient direct sun light to help the excess water evaporate and insufficient slope of the garden bed forcing the excess water away from the shade against the garage wall.

Once we had removed the moss (using a simple rake), before we could start planting new or transplanting any current, flowers or bushes we needed to build up the garden.

So, we ordered 5 cubic yards of triple mix: one part soil, one part peat moss and one part manure. I don’t know what others use, but what we ordered was the type with horse manure. The source of this triple mix collects the horse manure from the local farms and then keeps it in large piles for a full two years, fermenting’. After the two years has passed it is then trucked to another area where it is mixed with the other two ingredients.

What does 6 cubic yards of triple mix look like? Well, not in the picture below, which is only around 4 cubic yards. Why? Well, I forgot to take a picture when it was first dumped on our front yard. (sorry about that ).

We then used the two wheeled chart (not a wheel barrel as written about previously) to move the triple mix onto the waiting front gardens, ensuring that the slope of the placed triple mix was such that it sloped away from the garage wall so any excess water from garden watering would run down and away from the garden and not remain to create a whole new batch of moss.

OK, we now have the triple mix to use for building up the garden bed which would then allow us to commence with the planting and transplanting.

To continue with the next article in our garden makeover series, simply select this link to Part 8.