Updated Plan. The red line shows the modified location of the Phase 1 bed.
The red line and green show the proposed bed. The orange line shows the original location from my plan.
We are still working on the final plant list. In the meantime, Stacey is working on clearing the ground. She has a hand sod remover tool and has been slowly taking the grass away. She is considering getting the big guns out and renting a big sod remover. Gotta love big power tools! The grass will soon be replaced new beds of wet newspaper, good soil, possibly more newspaper and finally mulch in preparation for the new plants.
I headed over to finalize the shape of the circle for the back bed (Phase 1). The original plan shows a 20′ diameter half circle. Stacey had done some preliminary markings with a 15′ diameter. In the end, we went with an 18′ diameter centered on the future patio. In addition to aligning with the patio, this will allow her to leave an existing post and use it for a bird house. This does leave the area closest to the driveway a little in flux (maybe a gravel edge) as the planting be might be too wide in this area.
One thing I have found with landscaping as opposed to other forms of home improvement is that you often have to tweak the layout a little bit on site until it feel just right.
