Complete

The landscaping is finally complete!

Brian Cossari and crew from Hoffman Landscapes put the finishing touches on our back yard today. The Town of Wilton's wetlands regulations would have been impossible to navigate without Brian's help. When there was a disagreement during the project, I feel Brian did the right thing by making sure I was satisfied even though it cost him a little money. While our project was on the small scale for them, I was always treated professionally. I would definitely use them again for any sized project.

And just look at the before picture, yuck!

The Gate - Part II

The gate has now been painted and you can see that the grass is slowly growing.

Maddy and Paddy (the ducks) have been back to visit. In fact, when they are hungry they become quite bold and will march up to the driveway in search of a snack. With the fox running around, I get a little nervous. I'm not sure if a fox would eat a duck, but I don't want to find out.

When Danny sees the ducks, he still races to the edge of the pond, but always stops before making the final leap. In fact, he is much more fascinated by the woodchuck and will just sit and stare at the opening to the burrow.

The Gate

As part of the new landscaping, there is supposed to be a gate at the top of the stone stairs.We have been waiting for the gate to be installed and today it finally arrived!

We are trying to decide if we should stain it white or some other color. It gives an interesting focal point to the yard.

There is one stump left to be removed and then the project is complete.

The grass is slowly coming in - a few sunny days and some light rain would really help.

Plantings

As we were leaving this morning, the landscaper arrived with our trees- we now have redbud trees and red twig dogwoods. There are still ferns to be planted. I don't know if the trees will bloom this year, but I am hoping they will add some color to the yard.

Waiting for rain

Our new yard has been seeded and strawed! We are now waiting for some rain, so the grass will begin to grow. The lawn is too large to water, without draining the well.

We decided to pile the additional 4 TONS of stone, rather than continuing the wall. There was not enough stone to build a wall across the entire back, and we thought that piling would seem more of a natural way to end it. Some trees need to be planted along the outer edge of the wall and then it will be finished.

When we bought this house we knew it could be beautiful and finally we are seeing what we hoped it would become.

2 tons to go

The wall is finished - the question is what to do with all the remaining 2 tons of stone ? It is hard to believe that all of this came from our yard.

The topsoil has been delivered, but grading cannot occur until the stone is relocated, either off site or to extend the wall.

Heavier equipment

The large excavator arrived today. The old yard is disappearing (thankfully) and the stone wall continues to expand.

Heavy Equipment

The heavy equipment arrived and our yard is now a big mud puddle. You can see the start of the "farmer's wall".

Landscape Plan

Brian Cossari at Hoffman Landscapes has been working diligently on the site plan and it's finally finished. We've had to make multiple changes due to feedback from the Wilton Inland Wetlands Department, but we finally think we have a plan that will satisfy everyone's needs. Hopefully, our application will get accepted at the December meeting and we'll be able to break ground sometime in late Winter/Early Spring.