i hope you are getting some good SOIL ..

and not just any old dirt ...

ken

My gosh, that will be a wonderful area and so large too. I am down to adding only small areas now because my husband said I am getting low on "dirt". My newest was just added to the front of my back yard garden and just dug out the sod of the back of my waterfall garden area because Myrle (Mctavish) says she has a few surprises for me on her return. Better to be safe and make it large. Good soil in and waiting. Other one beside the house planted with my hosta choice order and a few other compliment plants.
Waiting for the progress pictures

Funn, the vision is the important thing to remember. This too shall pass. I'm reminded of my friend's house on the river where I lived a year after selling MoccasinLanding. SHE had truck loads of "stuff" hauled in (trucks got stuck, what a mess) and then the Bobcat with a dirt track hero driver hired to spread it out. We watched in fascination. Then the both of us got the grass sod squares to lay out in a checkerboard pattern. Her vision saw us adding more soil to the blank spots so the grass runners could cover it over the summertime, and it would be level before fall arrived. The plan worked, and it became a gorgeous lawn.

Here is a picture or two of that project.

So it will all be right as you wish in the end.
Actually at 75 x 35 your space is a shade more than my 100 x 25 hosta garden. If I have 500 hosta there, I can see you having that many in YOUR space. :)

You go girl!

Yes, hold on to that vision!! It will look wonderful when it's done.

I'm in the middle of such a project myself and I keep telling myself "Eyes on the prize." We have a 160 foot drainage swale that cuts through our property that we are renovating. By hand! When I am working, I keep my back to the undone portion (which is most of it) so I don't get unnerved. Like mountain climbing, I guess. Don't look down!
:-)

Thanks for the encouragement, everyone. We have had a lot to deal with in the last couple of days, some project work, some other unfortunate business, so it's been a tough set of days. The encouragement is greatly appreciated right now. This is the second hardest thing to deal with in a project, the wrecking ball moment. The first would be a project failed (which I've gone through in the past as well). Nothing like going through all of the work just to find out, unbeknownst to you, the entire side yard drains into that area or something similar. I am a bit worried about drainage in this area, so I will be thinking a lot about preventative decisions on that in the next few days. Better to fix any problems now than have to deal with it when the entire area is established. So much to do!

So is the problem you're having resolved related to the insane amount of rain we got last year? We have been dealing with water issues as well. In fact, the $6,000 waterproofing project really wasn't the way I wanted to spend my money, LOL. Our house is on a corner lot of a cul-de-sac and the terrain slopes down from the street all the way to the bottom of our street into the woods. Remember that day about a year ago when we got about 5 1/2 inches of rain in one day? That was the beginning of our water problems. For us, the ground underneath the slab portion of our house is so saturated that every time the rain is heavy enough and long enough, we had water breaching a wall in our basement/elevated crawl space on the other side of the slab.

Sorry you are having to do all this work now. Your hostas will be OK in the pots and when you get to put them back and make that area beautiful again, it will be very rewarding.

Hey fun, I like what you've done with change in elevation. And the tracks across the yard leads the eye and adds movement. The start of a pond in the foreground is also a plus as water features add interest but mostly I like the pile of lumber on top of the rise for that "Grecian Ruins" look.

;-)

tj

It will be great. Like anything worth doing, it'll be worth it all when it's done. : )

Cheers,
Don B.