A path

Over the winter I read a bunch of gardening and landscaping books that filled my head with such grand ideas.  I'm proud to say that one of these grand schemes was turned into a reality this spring.  But like most big ideas it didn't go exactly as planned.  I mentioned a while ago that I was planning to install a garden path/ lawn boarder.  The internet told me it would be so easy.  We laid the bricks in their intended position, which killed the grass and gave us a guide for removal.  The actual removal, however, was not such a small task.  My soil is not very sandy so the grass had to be forcibly separated from the soil otherwise I would have lowered the whole area too much.  So we manually removed enough to install the path, purchased the bricks (I bought some plants too, but this was knowingly premature so I don't want to confess to it.) and lined up a truck friend for the weekend.  Doug, do you know how much I appreciate all the help?  Without you this would not have been possible.  It was only after we really got rolling that we checked our plan with a real live knowledgeable person from the area.  She told us that the current plan wasn't solid enough for winters here.  The freezing and thawing would result in an ugly path come spring time.  We rent our current place but that didn't feel like a good excuse to do a bad job.  So we agreed to a new plan even though it involved more supplies and time.  We dug more grass and laid a ton of gravel.  Literally one ton!  This is why we need a truck to do this.  Then tamped this gravel with a heavy but small tamper.  Thank goodness we had three people or this would have taken all day.  Wait... it did take all day.  That seemingly short list of tasks took all Saturday.  I told Ian this would be a one afternoon project but I was so so wrong.  We called it a night with only the sand and bricks to lay the next day.  But when I got up the next morning and looked at the gravel with fresh eyes it seemed a bit low.  Measuring confirmed that either we dug out too much soil or placed too little gravel and no matter how we measured it would take more gravel.  So back for more gavel (total 1.5 tons).  Then after we placed the gravel, back for sand (.25 tons).  After the sand we placed special plastic guides to keep the bricks from sliding around then finally the brick.  That was not the last step but in some was it was the most satisfying.  It really looked like a path then.  We weren't done, of course.  We had to level and replace the grass on the lawn side and remove the remaining grass on the plant side as well as sweep sand into the cracks.  After the grass was gone from the fence side the aforementioned purchased plants finally got a real home.
 

This is what it looked right after I declared it 'done'.  Of course it was not actually done.  I put in more plants, flowers mostly, and let the chickens at it.  I wanted so much from this little area.  I wanted to have some edibles (black current, sage and some herbs), beauty, drought resistance and chicken hardiness.  About a month after this picture I realized that it was not compatible with the chickens.  They just tore it up and the flowers I planted were dying.  So with a heavy heart I put a fence around it.  Sorry chickens, I guess I care about pretty more.  And it does look pretty (imho).  This was done a while ago (lazy blogger) and I should put up a more current photo but I don't have one handy (lazy photographer).  You'll just have to trust me.