Hi there. This is the second weekly report for my June 2024 tilde30 project.
My original thinking for milestone 2 had been as follows:
m2 - create a xeriscape design SVG
- this SVG will be scaled to my property
- concrete, permanent buildings/features, and existing plants will be clearly marked
- the SVG will include layers for each successive phase of the larger plan
This week I haven't been as diligent in attacking the stated milestone goals, as evidenced by the fact I am posting this update two days late (or three I guess if you're thinking in UTC).
However! I have been gradually making some amount of progress:
- I have more or less finished scaling the SVG to my property lines
- I have added most of the permanent fixtures in their rough locations relative to the house, and the significant existing plants (remaining from when I bought the house a few years ago) are marked.
- I have begun pulling weeds that were threatening to overgrow the yard
Okay I am going to learn zola shortcodes in order to display the latest revision of my SVG design doc:
Rough Current Drawing of Property
There is a lot going on here but I don't really want to spend a lot of time writing about it. It displays several elements I want to remove:
- the carport in the yard (the dark grey polygon in the lower left corner)
- about half of the driveway concret (the red crosshatchish pattern next to the carport)
- the dessicated wood used for a walkway and patio in the back yard (the horizonal line pattern mabobs)
- the old concrete grill (the light brown rectangle next to the house in the back yard)
I've been putting through into what it will take to remove the concrete. I've considered using a jackhammer but it would be a bit too close to the house for comfort. So instead I was thinking of using a heavy sledge hammer, a stone splitting wedge, a hammer drill with a masonry bit, and a plastic sheet to keep shards of concrete from taking house windows.
Probably the best way to see what I'm planning to remove is in the next image, which is a WIP for my first design.
WIP for Design 1
Here I have removed all the elements mentioned in the previous section and begun adding new delements. Notably:
- two sets of concentric circles which are WIP representations of roughly 20' tall by 20ft diameter trees that I would like to plant in the front yard.
- a gabion cage wall along the sidewalk at the south end of the property (represented by the medium brown circular pattern mabob)
I have been reading up on various drought-tolerant plants but haven't really formed a solid idea of how to place them. I've also been taking notice of different grasses as I walk around town or while out hiking.
The most important part of my final design will really the two trees in the front yard -- those will exist in some form regardless of what else goes into the final design. The trees will do two things:
- they will take the brunt of the beating laid down by the sun on a daily basis
- they will provide a wide swath of shade in the yard to give me options for choosing plants that are less tolernat of full sun
To account for how tree shade will be thicker near the center of the tree and more sparse around the edges, I've used a circular gradient that is more transparent toward the outside to style them in the diagram.
One problem I anticipate having to resolve with respect to these trees is figuring out how to protect the city water line feeding the house from the root systems as the trees grow. It's possible that I may only be able to plant one tree safely.
Thoughts on process
My original thinking about this milestone was that by this time I would have a more or less finalized design, or at least a draft of one. But given how long I expect this xeriscaping effort to take, that may not be realistic. There is a lot of learning that I expect to do and there are a lot of steps to get the property to a state where it's even ready to begin adding stuff -- demolishing the driveway, installing a new carport, dismantling the old carport, among several other things.
So I am adjusting my expectations with regard to design. I will likely work on a couple different designs in parallel over the next half year or so while doing demolition and prep to the additive parts.
Okay it's late at night. Milestone 3 is going to involve getting into the weeds (ba dum tss) of research and detailed planning. Maybe I'll put together a spreadsheet for that.