Trash Patio

Completed Patio

For the past two weekends I have put Honey to work.  The area on the side of the house which leads into the laundry room was becoming a huge problem.  With all the snow and rain, the side of the house became a mud pit.  I think it was a bigger cause of my muddy floors than any other area of the yard!
So I put Honey to work building a trash patio, for lack of better words.  We store our trash, recycling and Composter  out there as well as our hose and sprinklers.  Since there is a slight slope, we needed to build stairs as well.  Luckily all the materials in the project were FREE!  That's what happens when you buy a house from someone who was a handyman with 1000 unfinished projects.  I have found probably 20 of the LARGE plumbing pipes buried in the yard (stored in the yard is more like it), another 20 small pipes and multiple shapes and sizes of pavers and bricks.  I have since gotten rid of all of the pipes since I have no use for them, but the pavers keep getting rearranged.
      Honey is very good at making sure that everything is level.  Me? not so much!  So he did a fantastic Job of creating the patio and a new planting bed.  I put in  a few Astilbe and some free Hostas (I divided them up from other parts of the yard)  Hostas must be one of the gardener's favorite friends!  I think it will look even better in the summer when everything is in bloom, but for now, here is the new flower-bed:

You can just see the Hostas poking through the soil.

This is the Forsythia that I used in vases in the house while it was in bloom, but am trying to see if any will root.  Then I can expand my "wall of Forsythia" in the backyard.

Here is a picture of the pile of mulch that I had delivered, I think there is such a thing as too much mulch!