Stairway to Heaven

If you recall Kelly Gardens is very hilly.  The previous owner was either a bit handy or bit parsimonious, or perhaps a bit of both.  He built lots of things out of scraps that he had probably gotten free. There are benches, stairs and bridges, all of which are in various states of decay.

In the above photo, you can see some benches he made from two cinder blocks with a piece of lumber fastened across the top. He placed 3 of these lovely seats around a fire pit.  The lumber has rotted a bit (not surprisingly since they are probably 25 years old) but they still work, and we moved one of them to overlook the lake. Behind the bench, you can just see one of his staircases in the distance.

A closer look at the staircase from the picture above. As you can see, he just sawed lengths of railway tie and nailed them to strips of wood. You can just see at the bottom the wood has snapped.  They don't look very safe do they?  David tried to fix them, but I don't think they're much better as they aren't even, and as there's no hand rail they are not easy to negotiate. It is remarkably hard to make stairs.

David tries out the new stairs. They certainly look better!

These stairs go down to a little valley that we call the Deer Run (yes, I know I've still got to get that map posted so you can see where all these places are.)  At the top of this set of stairs is a smaller set which are constantly in the shade and have been come beautifully covered in moss.

Notice the little fern that's seeded itself in the gap between steps

This is a delightful location for a planting. We decided that this Japanese Forest Grass, Hakonechloa macra aureola would look splendid here as it tolerates the shade. We ended up planting 3 plants here but only 2 have survived.  Hopefully, as they get older, this grass will end up having a waterfall effect edging the stairs.

To be continued...