I always welcome breaks from regular maintenance work and this little project was a strata request. One of the residents often tripped on tree roots in the back of her unit and she also wanted a small area where she could plant something. So I went in and fixed it in a few hours.
Step 1
This is the before picture with roots and one sad Hydrangea.
Step one involved marking the area and eliminating small surface roots. I laughed to myself because I like to run off-road and tree roots provide me with technical trail running fun. I love tree roots. But here the lady lived in fear of the small roots so I took out the smallest ones. The bigger ones got buried by soil amender.
Only the smallest roots were removed from the new pathway.
Step 2
Step 2 involved moving in rocks to anchor the soil from moving down the slope. I had to borrow helpers for this step because two-man rocks require two men. Two strong men. Some of the smaller rocks we borrowed from a near-by stream bed.
Step 3
Since I was asked to remove a Skimmia shrub from a neighbouring patio bed I dug up the struggling Hydrangea and placed the Skimmia there. This is a common theme in strata landscape maintenance. We don’t want anything dead, diseased or obviously struggling. The one Hydrangea in the corner was at best marginal.
Step 4
Two yards of soil amender.
This was the best step because I got to move two yards of soil amender. The soil is nice and fluffy and smells great. Note that since my truck was parked at an angle I didn’t lift the back to dump out the soil. I handled everything with my shovel because raising the back up on an angle could potentially flip the truck over on its side.
Step 5
The last step before a clean-up blow was lightly top dressing the pathway and over seeding it with good quality seed.
The new pathway is on the right: root-free and over seeded.
I hope the lady likes her new bed and safer pathway. We’ll see what she plants in there.
All done: new soil, rock anchors and a transplanted Skimmia.
