Pictures & History

ALTAR GARDEN MAKE-OVER
May 16, 2010

What's left of the Cascading Rosemary planter gets a make-over into the "Altar Garden."
Pics Lobo Solo (Matrix) Blackberry phone camera.

This project started Saturday 8:00 AM with the disassembly of the old cascading rosemary rock bordered planter and then literally sifting the existing soil non-stop for nine hours -this was the first step. Before this picture was taken the rocks generally made a circle and on the inside were a lot of weeds, lots of dirty old sea shells -like trash, stray gravel, an old pine tree stump, and dead cascading rosemary stumps and branches -all but two died away over the years. This "front and center" garden in front of the house looked a mess. So, I (Solo), disassembled the ring of rock border and then proceeded to "clean" the soil and turn it for debris. I removed the old pine tree stump and then the rest of the bramble by hand with a wire mesh screen sifting several cubic feet of soil -this took many hours and a gallon of drinking water. I filled a 55 gallon trashcan right to the brim with gravel and debris. I worked a straight nine hours happily in the desert sun of Landers that Saturday. The result was a trash-free soil already mulched from the years of cascading rosemary living in the little garden area. This picture shows the stage after the soil was sifted for debris. You can just make out the two remaining cascading rosemary bushes which are pretty healthy and had been trimmed by someone else, they resemble Japanese bonsai juniper trees.

Just another angle of the same thing. The piles of gravel and debris on the pavement.

Now, to the task of re-building the rock border.

Re-assembly of the rock border begins. 'Seems I enlarged the garden a bit and I had to "pilfer" more of the larger rocks from other places on the property to complete the ring of rock. These pictures don't do justice to the different kinds of beautiful rocks. Some where amazing, some had ultra cool shiny stuff. I had only the two-day weekend to accomplish my task or I would have taken more detailed photos. Mohabee took more, but not available yet. OK, so now on to the next step. It is now Sunday...

Now that rock border is in place and the crevasses in between the larger rocks are shored up with smaller rocks so that the soil wouldn't just run out between the rocks when watered. Next, the process of leveling the soil begins. The rosemary plants were "propped up" a bit with rocks to keep them from laying directly on the soil. This decorative type of cascading rosemary plant doesn't grow as much "upwards" like the type of rosemary that is used as an herb.
 

The soil is leveled and a surplus of soil is left over. To make the garden a little more interesting, the left over mound of soil will be formed into a tier with additional smaller rocks for the tier border wall.

The final product -horrible picture... but the tier is in back behind the center bush, a border of small rocks around each of the rosemary bushes and two halves of a brilliantly iridescent abalone shell adorns the front of the rosemary bush rock borders with pearly quartz geode shards set inside the shell halves. Later will come irrigation and more plant varieties.

End of Story
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