I did it (but it almost did me!)

Here's where my troubles began! Well, recent back troubles anyway. I should have tried harder to find someone to take on the job of moving aside all the little stones covering this messy parking space alongside my garage. Previous owners used it to park their caravan; I used to keep my trailer there before I gave it away. For the past few years the car-size space has just been a throughway from the front of the house to the back garden - not used for much except a few pots of plants. 

The whole area consisted of river gravel laid down over sheets of black plastic. Trouble is, the layer of stones wasn't thick enough to prevent the weathering of the plastic, which had never been secured to the ground beneath. Round stones never settle on slippery plastic. And dirt from areas where the plastic lifted had mixed with stones - it was an unsightly mess. 

The only solution: move aside the stones, rip up the old plastic piece by piece, lay down and fasten in place proper weed matting, then clean the stones of accumulated dirt and put them down over the new matting, maybe topping up with extra stones to make a good thick covering.

I thought about leaving some areas of soil exposed for planting ground cover plants, since I don't use this area for vehicles. And on the very rare occasion when I might need to let a service vehicle through to the back yard for some reason, it's easy enough to dodge ground covers (or move pots). But as soon as I began the work, I realised that the whole area has a vigorous set of roots criss-crossing the ground, coming from the neighbour's very healthy row of small trees planted as a hedge along the fenceline on his side. So rather than compete with all the roots, it made sense to create a weed-free surface and plant things in large pots here and there. (The neighbour and I did remove the largest of these surface roots though, and so far at least his hedge plants haven't seemed to mind.)

I had contacted a few handymen to quote for this work, but I no one wanted to do it. (I should have realised then what a slog it would be.) No doubt a landscape company would have taken it on - but at what cost! And I could well imagine the mess they might make of it - they'd want to strip the whole area clean to start with, which meant moving all the stones and piling them up somewhere. But where? I would have stones scattered in nearby lawn for months. So I decided if I could get it done before the hotter weather arrived to make outdoor work too onerous, I would do the job myself. 

And so I did - section by section, one barrowload of stones at a time. It took me four weeks, working 4 or 5 days a week, 5 or 6 hours each day. About halfway through I began to think it was all just too difficult. And I made another attempt to employ someone to help. But I couldn't find anyone. So I pressed on. 

At the end of it all I did hire a nice young man with a truck (thank you, Airtasker!) to pick up, deliver and unload a trailer-load of additional stones to finish the job. 

I'm very happy with the result, but can hardly believe I got through it. It's taken weeks for my body to recover. Not surprised that I came down with a terrible bout of winter flu shortly after finishing. I think I had no reserved energy to fight off germs. But I've learned one thing: my days of heavy labour are over. This Amazon lady is hanging up the workboots. Only garden-variety stuff for me from here on.