Sprinklers, Plants, and Mexican

More landscaping

This weekend we came up for another productive working weekend.  Last weekend we got the sprinklers set up, the plants laid out, and fixed some water lines.  This weekend it was time to bury the sprinkler lines and get the plants in the ground. 

Burying the sprinklers

Sunday morning we got started early and started by trenching out for the sprinklers.  This quickly turned into another all out battle against the now dying banyan tree roots.  Those roots were everywhere.  As big of a pain as it was, I’m glad we got them cleared out around the foundation.  It’s one less thing to worry about.  We trenched about a foot deep and set the sprinkler lines and sprinkler heads down into the trench.  We left the heads about two inches above the dirt so that when we put mulch in, they’d be nearly flush. 

Rain delays

The weather on Sunday was pretty bad.  Real heavy rain showers about every hour.  I’ll be honest though, taking a break every hour after pulling roots out of the ground and digging trenches was kind of nice.  On the south side of the house by the kitchen, we found some underground wires as well as some water lines.  The water line fed a spigot out at the front of the house.  As it would be in the way of the sprinkler lines and as we’ll be replacing all of the water lines and adding new spigots, we opted cut and cap the line where it split off the main line.  We then removed all of the pipe in the ground including the spigot.  For the electric line, I checked and it didn’t have any juice to it, so I cut it and got rid of it.  Little by little we’ll get the mechanical systems cleaned up.

Planting the plants

With the sprinkler lines in the ground, we started on putting the plants in the ground.  On either side of the front entry, there will be a gardenia.  Around most of the foundation of the house will be dwarf pringles which should grow to about 3′ tall.  On each front corner of the house and below the kitchen window, we will be planting double knockout roses which should be 3-4′ tall and wide.  They’re called double because they appear to have two rows of petals when they flower. We started with the gardenias at the steps and then did the knock out roses on the corners.  With those plants in, we filled in the dwarf pringles between.  Lastly, we planted the pringles down both sides of the house.  Good enough for one day.  We got cleaned up and then enjoyed some Mexican cuisine at Señor Jalepeño’s.  ¡Olè!

Moving a sprinkler head

Monday morning we started by relocating one of the sprinkler heads and cleaning up the massive pile of roots from yesterday. The one sprinkler head to get relocated is on the south side of the house and waters the three fruit trees in the side yard. Once everything got in the ground, the pringles blocked the spray enough that it needed to move in front of them to be effective. So we dug it up and moved the head out from the house about 2′. Good. While I was doing that Oceana drug all of the roots into a big pile out back.

Fabric, edging, and mulch

Next up was raking the planted areas smooth to prep for the landscape fabric install.  We didn’t have enough edging and mulch to do all of the beds so we focused on the front first.  We laid out the fabric and cut around the plants.  Lastly we dug a shallow trench for the composite edging which of course turned into fighting more roots.  It’s easy to get wore out pulling up roots from the ground so I resorted to just cutting each side of the trench with the machete and leaving the roots intact.  We got the fabric down, edging installed, and the mulch laid across the front of the house.  We’ll have to pick up more supplies for next weekend to finish down the sides of the house.  We also did some fabric and mulch around the three fruit trees in the side yard.  This place is starting to look nice!

Odds and Ends

Thanks to Bud for bringing us some more avocados.  Thanks to Tom and Kay for more key limes.  We met Roy this weekend who owns the triple lot on the side of the lake directly opposite us with the sea wall and dock.  Thanks to Tom (again) for the tractor work in the side yard.  He flattened it out nicely and got up most of the big roots.  The county came through and cleared out the overgrowth along the sidewalk down route 27 which is right behind our house.  With the amount of overgrowth we’ve cleared out and now with what they cleared out, we can see and hear the traffic much more prominently than before.  I’m looking forward to clearing the last bit of Brazilian pepper trees out by the carport and then getting the privacy fence up.  That should help a bit with the noise.  That’s all for now.  Ya’ll have a good week.