Drainage installation.
I wasn't planning on it originally, but this year's unusually heavy rains revealed a serious drainage issue with the current backyard slope:
Once everything dried out a bit I dug out some new trenches to run drainage lines out thru the side yard, then re-graded the surface to direct water to two main port locations:
Installed the lines and the central drain ports:
Covered the drain ports with landscape fabric secured with wire so that they could be essentially invisible after covering the backyard with DG.
Everything covered and secured, drain ports flush with the DG layer:
They'll get covered entirely once the final layer of crushed white rock goes in.
DG (Decomposed Granite) layer.
Covered the entire back yard with landscape fabric and put down about 3 inches of DG to hopefully end my weeding issues in the background for the foreseeable future. Had some help from Juan on this stage; 5 truckloads of DG were needed. Added a layer of lime under the landscape fabric to mitigate the "bathroom" scent, since Jade and Indigo like to take "bio breaks" in this area.
Finished some final brick liner details around the plum tree and stairway along with fabric and DG layer. After cleaning up and leveling the old potting bench this area is now almost squared away, pending installation of more concrete stepping stones around the tree:
Also finished connecting all the water lines and installing timers for the two backyard water zones. Both connect in this back corner and feed all planting areas and the planter boxes with the veggies:
Added solar lighting to the planter boxes.
Had to cut, stain and attach these small mounting blocks to the front of all 6 planters in order to get the solar lights situated firmly:
The final solar lights (bought on Amazon). These throw a really lovely wash of lighting down the front of each box after dark, and no wiring required!
The Dollar Store got in a stash of these cheap solar garden stake lights; I bought the lot and installed them all along the new brick-lined planting beds and in the japanese garden as well:
Finally : Planting!
Took a trip to the local farmer's market and purchased some heirloom tomato seedlings.
Still more work to do cleaning up some details and installing the top layer of crushed white rock, but after many months of hard labor this project is nearing completion!