River rock tales

Carefully placed river rock (stone by stone)

I've been too tired after placing river rock (in place of the mulch around my raised vegetable beds and in our front path) -- for the last 3 days (3-4 hours in the morning and an hour or so in the evening is about all I can do), to manage an new post about the garden or any nature observations.  Thank goodness, my gardening companion was doing the really heavy lifting, but I'm the rock placer.

I'm admiring the pocket meadow, which is glorious right now, but don't have the energy to write about how I'm going to change out the tomatoes and peppers in the deep bed for greens this fall. I'm pooped.

The river rock odyssey started early last week, when I suddenly had the energy to start raking out the mulch that had washed down into the small river stone path leading to the house over the years, covering at least half of it. Not particularly attractive.

I excavated and washed off the stones, and it looked great -- inspiring us to think about our several year intention to replace the mulch around the raised beds with something more permanent (and less allergenic).

A trip to the stone yard had us selecting more small river rocks, to be delivered last Friday.  But, we made a mistake in the sizing, I wasn't there, and LARGE river rocks (2-5") were delivered (my gardening companion had even upped the scoop size, un-beknowst to me)....

A partially done addition

So, we've made lemons out of lemonade, with excellent results.  The large river stones, especially after we seal them to be darker, will be lovely.

The drawback is that they needed to placed, one by one.  Yikes.

It's reminded me of the flagstone path that I put in down in the Piedmont (I felt like I had been pummeled by sticks after each weekend.)

Final results will be coming soon.