More Green, Less Blue

When we bought our place in '96, it came with a large above-ground pool. For several years it got a decent amount of use, but in recent years it seemed like I was maintaining it all summer for a scant few hours of swimming or floating. Unfortunately, the electric pump has to run all the time, and you have to chlorinate and clean constantly whether anyone is using it or not. I also started to resent the time I was spending opening, cleaning, and closing it.
A covered pool in the summertime is an eyesore, and tends to deteriorate quickly. So I got some volunteers to help take it down and stack all the parts, intending to sell the pool and put in a knot garden.
You know about the best laid plans, right? First problem: the bottom of the metal sides and the base were rusted to the point that they were unusable. So the plan to sell the thing and have someone else haul it away faded quickly. Second problem: the area where the pool had been, instead of being a lovely circle of sandy soil ready for planting, quickly turned into a giant swampy shallow pond. Talk about an eyesore! I ended up getting a friend to help me take the pool parts to the dump (which I had to pay for), and I had to buy four truckloads of dirt to fill in the swampy hole in the yard. My husband borrowed a friend's tractor to deal with the truckloads of dirt. Since we were digging up the yard anyway, we re-designed the shape of the new garden and did some other garden/pond work while we had a tractor. I built a big planter off the side of the deck where the access to the pool had been, and we relocated the pool's electrical outlet for future outdoor use. I decided to make the new garden, which is next to the house, into a flower and herb garden, and to move the flowers from a far-away garden which will now be used for garlic, rhubarb, and asparagus.
The whole thing turned into a summer-long project and I didn't get to plant anything until fall. But now that the snow is almost gone, I'm looking forward to seeing what comes up in the new garden, and to fussing with the layout and moving plants around! It's exciting to have a new look to the yard, and I'm very happy that I won't have to spend precious garden time maintaining an electricity-using, chemical-laden swimming pool.
More green, less blue!