We begin to add dirt and seed after the rock walls are complete. Here is how it looked from the porch on the basement level. It took all summer long to make the rock retaining walls and fill in the area behind them for our front yard. Pete ended up doing the most of this work as I simply worked the garden below. The fall weather began to tell us to get moving a bit faster as we noticed winter getting ready to kick-in full blast.
It will not be a level yard but it will be a lot more gradual slope, giving us room to enjoy ourselves in front of the house.
Peter back blades smooth the fill dirt and the surface begins to take shape. What a change. The next step is lots and lots of hand raking to smooth it all out. We scatter 25 pounds of grass seed and fertilizer (16-16-16) evenly over the dirt. The seed just started springing up before the cold of winter closed everything down. Spring of 2022 will tell us if we did it right. Having a lawn in this front yard should reduce the amount of erosion around the house due to uncontrolled drainage.
Creating a Front Lawn doesn’t seem like a really complicated thing to do. But, it is something that takes a bit of design when you are on a steeply sloped property.
You can see the steep slope combined with a natural rock outcropping along the side of the house here.
Previous tasks that we have completed involved building up our driveway to insure accessibility all year long. Mainly, lots of gravel. The year before, we also cleared the shrubs and trees in an area above the garden and leveled it out planting grass to slow the flow of water before it reaches the garden.
Erosion and drainage may not seem very important for a lawn but remember that water is one of the most powerful things in nature. Water made the Grand Canyon…