Yard, Garden and Road Work at Edgewise Woods

Wendy lee Maddox – March 23, 2014, writing at edgewisewoods.com

It has been a productive few days. After digging up and moving all the daffodils last weekend we were finally ready to have some topsoil brought in to raise that bed. The topography had changed during the construction we had done on the house back in 2004 and water had been pooling there ever since. I could not get it delivered on short notice last weekend so set up a time this past Friday for them to come. I wanted to raise the bed at least a foot and it is about thirty feet long so I ordered seven yards of the topsoil Leafgro mix from Potomac Farms in Shepherdstown. The mix they brought me was excellent quality and the driver was able to spread it down the bed as he dumped it so we don’t have to move it around much. Leafgro is compost made in Dickerson Maryland from all the leaves they collect in Montgomery County. I have used it as a soil amendment for many years in my landscaping business and it is good stuff. I used to order it twenty yards at a time direct from the plant. Now all I have to do is decide what I am going to plant there and find the plants.

I am thinking either three hardy, red Crepe Myrtles or possibly some native Halesia caroliniana (Silverbells) or maybe Viburnums with an under planting of perennials and bulbs. I also thought about putting some HighBush Blueberry in there but their form is a little too scraggly for such an entrance bed. I want a neat appearance, blooms, fall color, and winter interest as well, so it will take some thought. At least I am finally ready to plant whatever I find.

We have a gravel drive about 600 feet long leading to our house. It goes through the neighbors’ property on the way to ours and is technically a road but since it is just the two houses and we share maintenance we keep it simple. Our neighbors used to put gravel on their portion of it fairly often, every few years. We however, have only put down gravel one other time in the last twenty years and that was right after we had some major construction done on the house about ten years ago. This winter has been a little rough on the road though, with lots of snow and serious bouts of freezing and thawing. It also did not help that we took a ditch witch last fall and dug a trench down the center to lay our new phone line. That brought some subsurface clay up to the top. So I started looking for guys to haul gravel, first on Craig’s List, then on Google and was not having a lot of luck. Gravel guys do not seem to do the internet thing very well.

Then I remembered to look in the “house repair” folder in my filing cabinet and actually found the receipt from ten years ago, for 18.75 tons of gravel. I called the number, which still worked, and left a message with C.W Gray Trucking in Martinsburg. They called back a short while later and we set a day for him to bring me out a 20 ton load and spread it. We both took Friday off from work, using our built up credit hours, and set the day aside for puttering about the yard. The driver called ahead to confirm the night before and the truck arrived only about 45 minutes later than he planned. There are always variables to consider in construction and trucking, such as how many are ahead of you in line at the quarry. I showed him the most important spots and he walked it to calibrate the speed he would need to drive in order to spread it at the proper depth and length. He set the tailgate chains so it would only open about a foot at the bottom and headed out the drive at a pretty good clip and did a really nice job of getting an even spread.

It looked so good I wanted to get another load and do the rest of the drive too. He was able to drive back to the quarry, pick up another twenty tons, and spread it for us an hour later. This time we had him leave about 3 tons of it in a pile so we could fill nooks and crannies and be sure to have a deeper area of gravel in the muddy spot where I usually park my pickup. The total cost  worked out to about $16.50 per ton and was well worth it.

Jeff spent Saturday hauling wagon and wheelbarrow loads of gravel to low spots, out to the mailbox, and in front of the garage doors. I raked the bits of gravel that had bounced into the grass back in to the drive along the whole length of it and smoothed out his piles.

I also managed to get in the veggie garden and plant ten pounds of Yukon Gold potatoes, a short row of Sugar Snap peas, a half pound of yellow onion sets, and some spinach and lettuce. I don’t care if it IS supposed to snow on Tuesday. I am calling it Spring.

We were both exhausted and sore at the end of the day and treated ourselves to a smoothie from Mellow Moods in town. We collapsed on the couch and watched an early movie, “After Earth” with Will Smith and his son, which was pretty good, and were in bed by 9:30.

It is very satisfying to have the whole drive freshly graveled and it will last another ten years I am sure.