Name: Jeanie Minnesota (Zone 4a) Replace your lawn with a garden!
I live on a corner which has a steep hill on both sides of it. It was impossible to grow a decent lawn and to mow the lawn. It looked terrible all the time. I tried to plant a few things and found it was also impossible to dig a hole of any size; apparently there had been large trees there and an old retaining wall. I got a quote for a contractor to build a retaining wall - $10,000 for just one side of the hill, and he said I would have to also install a fence so that childfren wouldn't climb the wall and get hurt, because my corner is a main elementary school crossing. I couldn't afford that. I also got a quote for a contractor to install a rock outcropping sort of arrangement; that was $6,000, not including any plant materials. I couldn't afford that either. So I decided to see what I could do on my own. I did some figuring and then ordered 4 tons of field boulders and 6 yards of garden mix, and had it delivered all together. My kids and my neighbors all were sure I had completely lost my marbles, and when I saw the materials I was rather inclined to agree. I figured out how to move the boulders using a furniture dolly and a rope, and away I went. Here are photos of the creation of the garden and how it looks now.
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Old gardeners never die. They are just pruned and repotted.
