I have an area that has been in a state of transformation since we moved into our house two years ago. It sits in a corner of our house as well as at the end of our drive/patio. There is a lot of run-off both from rain and snow melt which means it can be a basement issue. The former-former owners put down a strip of concrete next to the wall to help divert water away from the very old, stone foundation.
A large hydrangea occupied the space, but it wasn't my cup of tea. Hostas occupied the space underneath with pretty bland varieties and imagination. I tore it all out and started from scratch with plants, but the drainage made that challenging and plowing snow off the end of the drive meant there was always going to be some damage.
My youngest child was clearing out all the stone cover in her yard from the previous owners. She wanted plants, not red granite. We took home stone over the course of several months 10 buckets at a time until we brought it all home and had a pile on the concrete waiting for the next step.
I scrapped and shoveled and sifted all the soil in this area and used it to fill sunken stump holes in our yard. The buried river rock was sifted, rinsed, and reused in a separate area that already had a river of river rock going through it. The junk went into old wood chuck holes that dot our rural property. Nothing went to waste. I kept harvesting soil until I hit clay. Once I hit clay, the drainage project began. I cut a channel down the center at an angle to pull water away from the corner of the house. Once we have a gutter and downspouts on the back of the house, this will complete the roof diversion of water. The channel met up with the well established low point drainage coming off the concrete. I followed old lines which I outlined with simple edging block which was also a gift from my daughter's house.
I was gifted a large roll of weed barrier which I usually shun for most landscape projects. I used cheap landscape pins since holding this in place until I got the stone down was my main objective. I have no interest in planting this area, and the stone will never break down like wood mulch into an organic bed. This is the PERFECT application for weed barrier, (second only to putting it in my vegetable garden with my tomato plants to prevent soil splash, reduce weeds, and keep my feet clean). I used pins to hold it to the contours formed by my drainage areas cut into the clay bed right up to the edging. the only area not covered is the concrete strip you see at the bottom of the photo.
I painstakingly went through the stone rinsing off the soil that had stuck to some of the stone before laying it in my bed. My goal is to have this as sterile as possible, so removing dirt and possible weed seeds was important to me. There was quite a bit just from moving it out of the original beds at its former home. Now I have an area that hopefully won't grow anything and will be an appropriate area to pile lots of snow with some salt from driveway deicer. It does provide a very good area to hold plants during vacation or to serve as a mini nursery area.
