One of the guys working for me was back here in this part of the backyard and called this the Zen Garden The name stuck and now everyone calls it that. I have tried to turn it into the poor mans version of the Polynesian Village features at Disney. When we built the house in 2005 the landscaping included a row of Areca palms five or 6 feet high along the back property line. Everything else back here was lawn. Ive never had a real plan just some ideas about some things I wanted to see back here. One thing leads to another. It started out as a brick fire pit with the bench on one side, then we added the bench on the other side, then a small waterfall feature, then the river, then a larger waterfall, then another river, possibly now Im at saturation point. Between the vegetation canopy and the five sun sails, very little direct sunlight hits anything back here. The exception being small area with the gray Mountain granite gravel which gets sun for a few hours a day and so I planted some cactus types there. Most of the other plants cannot tolerate direct sunlight. The canopy also keeps it about 20° cooler here in the middle of the day compared everywhere else around. Here in Florida we only have boring coral and shell filled type of rock. Any of the good rocks back here came from somewhere else. The rocks directly around the fire pit came from my mothers fire pit in Lynchburg Virginia and my brother Dave and his wife Robin had gathered them up in the mountains. The rocks around and under the main waterfall came from my cousin Scotts backyard in Virginia. The leaf looking birdbath with water running out of it was made by my wifes sister Dawne. She one one of the giant elephant ear leaves from my backyard and then used it to mold that birdbath out of concrete. Then she hand-painted. I am kind of obsessed with collecting plants so I usually pick another one up whenever I am in the nursery if it is a variety I dont already have. I have around 70 different varieties and types of plants back here. There are four pumps pumping about 8000 gallons per hour. Everywhere where there is water there are underwater lights so the entire yard lights up at night. All of the paver bricks the Trex that curves around to form the benches and the back of the benches, the pressure-treated wood that is part of it as well as the materials that made up two bridges over the rivers is all recycled or surplus materials from other projects and jobs that I was on. The bench swing hanging in the circle of the fire pit is my mother Evelyns original swing that she had hanging on her front porch when she lived in Hanover Park Illinois. She move that swing with her to Lynchburg Virginia and she enjoyed it there for another 35 years with my dad bringing it in in the winter and repainting it and maintaining while his health allowed. I moved her and her swing to live with us here in Florida for the last year of her life where she enjoyed that swing often still. Beyond that swing in the other half of the yard I guess will be Zen Garden South. We have some construction to finish up related to a room addition before we can do that but its pretty much a blank canvas at this point. Well have to see what the land says to me.
Posted on: Thu, 07 Aug 2014 21:06:27 +0000
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