Sealing the Border Between the Jungle and the West Lawn Bottoms

As we have excavated the West Lawn Bottoms, the trench that will be the Bottoms is defined by the Retention Wall on the one side and the Jungle on the other side.  The Jungle has a limestone block border that defines the one side.  We have excavated right up to, and under that border.  Digging gets most of it clear from the border down to bedrock.

A little jack hammer work gets out the stubborn stones to clear it straight down from the edging to bedrock.

We can then form this up and fill the area under the stone edging with cement, to keep the plants from the Jungle in the Jungle, and to support the edging.

After removing the forms, we have a section of the wall support.

This work was done in August.  In December, we had the opportunity to continue this further.

First, we have to clear out the dirt and rock.

Then we form it up.

Pour the concrete, wait a day for it to dry, pull the forms off and move the forms down to do the next section.

And do it again for the last section in what has been excavated so far.

The result may not be pretty, but it should be functional -- supporting the stone border around the Jungle, and sealing the Jungle off so that the plants in the Jungle do not grow out into the yard.  

 (We have had problems with the Nandina in the Jungle growing into the yard; this should stop that.) We want to continue this all the way around the Jungle, as we continue the excavation in the yard.

In March, we continued to dig around the Jungle.

Getting the rock out of the way, exposes a bunch of roots coming under the border between the Jungle and the lawn.

And a couple days of cleaning this out gives us another section of the border that we can pour concrete under.

We form this up, and pour the concrete.

We need to do this in two steps.  The first step creates the bottom half of the wall.  Then we move the forms up and pour the top part, right up to the bottom of the border rock.  The result is a bit rough, so we plaster the outside with mortar mix, to create a smooth plastered wall.