Mid-Atlantic Gardening: Yardening Fall 2013 Part 2, 3 by aspenhill

aspenhill wrote:
SSG, I've been thinking of you over the last week while I've been planting all my end of year bargains. For the most part, the soil in my garden areas is pretty easy to dig now after years of adding topsoil and compost. With each hole, I think how much more effort you put in and count myself lucky at how much easier it is for me. I felt your pain though (well not actually me, but Lowell's girlfriend Suzanne) when I decided to put the japanese snowbell tree in an area of the backyard that has never been worked before. Wow, hard clay - took several hours for getting the hole deep and wide enough - made me admire your persistence even more after that.

Your rock story also reminded me of a story. When we first started building the house and excavating for the basement, we hit rock. A friend who was digging it initially thought we'd have to get 'Cletus' the local dynamite guy. Before making the call, he tried bashing at it repeatedly with the loader bucket. When he started making progress at budging it, we found out that it was actually five huge boulders clustered together and we didn't need to call 'Cletus' after all LOL... The boulders got pushed out just far enough away from the basement area. I ended up designing the paths in what I call the Stepping Stone Garden and the Hillside Shade Garden around those boulders. These pictures were taken a few years ago - many plants have been added and filled in since then, but gives an idea of the design.