Replanting Near the Driveway

On Sunday N and I (okay, N really) dug into the awful subsoil-and-rock mess left where the plumbers had to dig up our water supply line and installed some new plants: a (Heller's) japanese holly and a (pink frost) lenten rose.  N dug deep, wide holes and filled in the bottom couple inches with bagged garden soil, then put in the plants and filled the space around them with more garden soil.  He also re-installed the disturbed portion of the rock ring around our tree, packing it in better and adding a rock that somehow got left out when the plumbers filled in the hole, so it looks solid again.  Then he leveled the remaining rubble a bit and used a wheelbarrow of mostly-rotted mulch leftover from a couple years ago to cover up all the mismatched soil and add a little organic matter. 

Overall I would rate this in excess of 500% improvement, though of course N was unsatisfied, as he always is with his own handiwork.  It could still use a layer of good mulch, and the end of the driveway is mostly covered in clay subsoil and could use a truckload of gravel.  I'll also probably ask my neighbor for a few hostas to stick in there to give it a more filled-in look while the shrubs grow, and I'd like to bury a couple strong pots in the ground for planting annuals in - in the past it has been almost impossible to plant anything new in that area because of the tree roots, and I anticipate the tree roots coming back in the next couple of years.

I normally mulch the front lawn and the side flowerbeds every other year, adding municipal compost on the off years.  This is supposed to be a mulching year, and it is needed in several places, but I'm starting to think it may not happen until the fall.  We'll see.