Yesterday, I marked the borders of the Living Fence Garden with marking paint. Today, I'll get the edger from DB#1 and break ground and cut the borders!!
Next step is to rent a sod cutter, get all that up and then rent a tiller and till the soil loose and then till in amendments. Really hard clay there. 
I'll probably take it a day at a time. Normally I would do all the hard labor, myself, but first of all it's a 60 foot long border, my back is still on the mend, I have daylilies in the veggie garden, I have my veggie plants ready to plant, and life is short 
, so machinery it is! 
I've a feeling there will be no turning back after using the heavy equipment, mostly bc of the simple joy of using power tools! 
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I'm so happy with the arbor!! I love it when concept becomes reality, and it actually works out as I envisioned!!
This is the gate, and the fence panel that will be installed to the right side of the arbor.
The rest of the fencing will be more utilitarian. 
I am dying to get this gate for between the house and the kennel, but it's expensive. Don't think Sparky would appreciate it as much as I do for the price.
Although, I haven't bought any daylilies for this year, and I'm only looking to get one, so perhaps it all evens out in the end. 
Plus there are tax refunds coming!👏👏👏 
Oh yeah.....I feel much better now
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As I mentioned two posts ago, we are planning to put up a no dig fence to keep Jerkwaad's dog out of our gardens, including an arbor with a gate. So, last Saturday, we finally got around to assembling the arbor, and this is what it will look like in it's permanent place:
This next photo shows the fencing (to keep Jerkwaad's dog out of our gardens) and the new garden plans. The red lines represent the no-dig fencing that will run to the left of the arbor, 77 feet behind the "Living Fence" (aka, forbidden garden) plantings, all the way to the back garden. I can't get it all in one shot. And red lines representing the gate at the arbor, and where the fence will terminate at the kennel. The yellow line represents the front edge of the Living Fence Garden. Yeah, we're fencing in a living fence. 
That was NOT the plan, back in a day, but desperate times.......desperate times. 
Jerkwaad's wood fence is not on the property line. The property line actually runs between the living fence plantings and his fence, so we have no choice.
I'm not gonna lie, I can't wait to get this fence up to see how Jerkwaad reacts. 😏😏 We think he'll implode.
Soon, I'll be cutting the front and back edges and tilling up the soil for the Living Fence Garden, so I can plant the remaining daylilies that are still in their pots in the veggie garden, from last year. Then I can plant veggies this year!! 
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Yesterday, I got a good deal of work done! Now the NE tree garden is completely cleaned up and all the plantings are fertilized there. I had to reset the brick border and it looks so much better! The brick border stops at the approximate point where this garden will connect with the new "forbidden" garden. The bricks were in disarray, and 3 bricks on the alley side were completely buried, no thanks to the neighbors directly across the alley, backing their cars on to them. It seems they moved out, which motivated me to dig out those bricks and reset the whole thing.
This photo of the old tree garden exemplifies how bad the brick border at the the NE tree garden looked, before resetting it:
These photos show the NE tree garden with the border bricks all cleaned up and reset:
In this second photo, you might have noticed landscape timber as part of the border on the alley side. I did that bc I ran out of (good) bricks, so a trip to Menard's is in my near future to get more brick.....oh darn! 😏
This year's plan for the old tree garden was to install two or three courses of retaining wall, to reduce the slope of the garden grade for erosion control purposes. Even mulch, on the back side, would wash away during downpours. I was afraid my back injury might have put that off until next year.
But thinking further, I really would need help with that installation, regardless of the condition of my back, so, it could still happen!! I would probably be less involved than usual, that's all! 
So, in addition to all that work (the NE tree garden took three days), I cleaned up and trimmed the edges around all of the trees and ornamental grasses, and the brick border along the future grass pathway, so it was a good two days!!
The Chiropractor has officially given me the okay to do gardening, as long as I don't bend at my waist, lift with my legs, and that I continue my home exercises! After today's evaluation, I'm standing in almost perfect alignment! There's a stubborn area in the small of my back that needs more time to get where it needs to be. I'll be starting once a week appointments, which will continue through July 28th, and knowing how bad of shape I was in after injuring my back, I couldn't be more thankful that I'm even standing, sitting, and moving as close to normal as I am, so quickly, and my gardening can continue this season, which is a huge relief!!
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Backstory: So, Jerkwaad allows his dog to run amok, without keeping an eye on him, regardless that city ordinance requires that dog owners keep their dog(s) tied up or on a leash, or contained in a fenced area while outside, and Jerkwaad seems to think that he's the exception to the rule. One day, I had brought our dog outside, on a leash to do his business when Jerkwaad's dog came over through the pathway, pinning me against the wall, scared to death at what might happen from both dogs, and with nowhere to go on either side of me. Our dog went nuts, barking, snarling, and showing his teeth, and if it weren't for our dog being on a leash, of which I had choked up to his collar, bringing him up on his hind legs, I can only imagine that Jerkwaad's dog might have been severely injured, and perhaps our dog as well! 
Our dog is a full breed Norwegian Elkhound. He's just a happy little guy. He loves to meet people, and he's very sweet and mild mannered. Not a nuisance at all, so he was protecting me that day. 
He still goes that nuts when he sees (or even senses) Jerkwaad's dog, and instinctively, he hasn't liked Jerkwaad from day one. He barks and barks at him, and we have to bring our dog inside, no matter how long he's been outside to do his business. Jerkwaad actually said to us that he thinks we trained our dog to behave that way toward him. Yes, he IS that narcissistic! So, as you can imagine, I'm not happy at all that he allows his dog to run around unattended in the neighborhood. 
We've had words over it, but he immediately sabotages the "conversation", yelling, cursing, swearing, and dropping the F-bomb. His dog is very, very nice (and so cute ) so Jerkwaad seems to think it's not an issue to let him run loose (bc his dog is nice) but what he isn't realizing is what other dogs might do to his dog. 
You can't fix stupid. 🙄🙄
I do plan to call the Warden on his behind, when the opportunity presents itself.
So, I found proof of several instances where his dog has run around in our yard and gardens, thanks to paw prints in the snow from this past Winter, so I took video of it. The location and direction from where the paw prints came on to our property, over and over again, and the direction to where they left our property, prove 90% that it was his dog. Then I wound up with video proof of his dog running loose around our patio and pathway, and eventually peeing in one of the gardens there, thanks to our new security camera in the back. 100% proof, baby!! As you can imagine, I was livid over him peeing in the garden as much as the day I got pinned against the wall when he came over to our dog. 🤬🤬 Jerkwaad allows this to happen in the mornings before he goes to work, and in the evenings after he gets home, basically when our heads are turned. It has happened during other times, like one time when our DD came home from work in late evening, and Jerkwaad was sitting on his porch with his unleashed/untied dog, and he allowed him to run across our front yard to greet her. I have video of that from our new front porch camera, as well.
So, I'm on the warpath to keep Jerkwaad's dog out of the gardens and I decided to put up a vinyl coated welded wire fence all along the side of our yard closest to the property line between us (not on the property line though) to the back side of the evergreens and ornamental grasses, and rounding the corner to run behind the adjacent NE garden, and turning on the opposite side of that garden to run halfway down the West side. Basically it will be shaped like an upsidedown letter "J". Sparky isn't thrilled about it, but he agreed nonetheless. Not the prettiest kind of fencing, but it's all we can afford. 🤷 Sparky doesn't want the whole yard fenced in but if that dog pees in any other gardens that he decides to get in to, after the fence is installed, it will be! I plan to eventually install more decorative black, no-dig fence panels where the fence will be most visible, but right now, I need the utility factor. There will be decorative black, no-dig gates on either side of the dog kennel. One of them will cut off the pathway between the house and kennel, and the other will lead through the new, white arbor, and I'm anxious to see it with the gates.
So, what is the silver lining? The fence that we will install prompts the installation of the forbidden garden to keep things neat at the bottom of the fence by edging said garden to keep the grass away!!! LOOPHOLE!!! YAAAY!!!!!
I am soooo happy!!
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