Hardscape Archeology

Hardscape archeology is admittedly a term of my own derivation, but probably most accurately describes the challenge ahead as I try to literally unearth the hardscape features of the property after years of neglect and disrepair. First on my list is the pond out front. I decided to tackle this first because it sits pretty close to the road and is one of the larges focal features of the property. (Or it should be!) It was in such bad shape that it was actually not until my second visit to the property before we bought it that I even noticed it was there!

Before... The planter was visible, but ivy chokes out the rest. 

After mowing the yard this week for the first time since all of the rain, I had a bit of time left before sunset so I thought I'd get started on unearthing the pond. I wasn't really sure what to expect as it appeared to be a jumble of rocks and a LOT of ivy.

Cleaning out the planter

My first task was to clean out the planter in the center of the pond. There was a bit of greenery poking out, but mostly it looked pretty sorry! There's no way to reach out to the center of the pond from the sides, So I made good use of one of the ladders left by the roofers to stretch across the pond. Then I CAREFULLY balanced my way out so that I could work on clearing out and replanting. For now I just popped in a pre-planted basket in with an assortment of flowers. Eventually I want to swap that out with some cascading vine... Trouble is that there's not an easy way to water whatever is out there, so whatever it is it has to be pretty drought tolerant.  

Once the planter situation was under control I started trying to peel back the ivy surrounding the pond. It looked to me like there were steps of some sort in the side facing the house (right about where the ladder is in the picture above) but there really wasn't any way to tell.... I pulled on the gloves and started yanking and cutting away at the ivy.

View from the house after a couple of hours. Steps now visible.

AMAZINGLY... after a couple of hours I not only unearthed the steps in the front of the pond, but I also discovered that what I first thought was just a pond with some steps up to it was actually MUCH more elaborate at one time. There's actually a flagstone capped concrete walkway that stair-steps up and around the fountain. In the time that I had I got about 1/2 of the way around on the side that faces the street.

Flagstone walk going up around the fountain. 

They've obviously seen better days, but it's quite exciting to dream about what it must have looked like at one time back when it was originally installed. I ran out of time before getting it all completely cleaned up, but you can definitely appreciate more of the structure of the pond. I still need to clean up the "bank" area between the flagstone and the top of the pond. That will probably mean a lot of manual labor to remove the stones, dig out all of the ivy vines, and get thing back in shape. A lot to do, but the prospect of getting it back to looking good is exciting!

From the road side looking back towards the house. 

All in all, a pretty satisfying afternoon. From the looks of it (and the smell of it!) the pond hasn't been cleaned out in QUITE some time. That will probably mean pumping it out to really get the gunk out... so more to come on that front!