Our Caribbean Beach Oasis...fine white sand, glistening water and a crackling firepit

When Jim said that he wanted a sand beach included in our backyard landscaping design, I thought he was kidding. He wasn't.

With every stone and boulder carried from the front to the back, the backyard landscape design came to be. The white sand arrived from Lake Winnipeg and we dumped enough sand for there to be at least 10 inches to twist your toes into. Grand Beach is prized around the world for its miles of the white, fine sandy granules.

We love the open camp fires and the s'mores (see recipe below). Usually the frogs sing in unison to the crackling fire. Can you see the water glistening?

Can you see the 'star' sparkles in the stream's water? The stream connects both ponds together. The water flow or current is pushed by the 10 foot high limestone waterfall.

The image below was taken July 14, 2009

Update beach video as of July 13, 2009...

We spend many evenings by the fire, with drink in hand. Nothing like toasting marshmallows or hot dog wieners over the open fire or s'mores (see recipe below).

There is something to be said for digging your feet in the cool sand...or building a sand castle...

Recipe for s'mores

Ingredients:

Preparation:

Toast marshmallows over a campfire until nice and soft. (try not too set them on fire) Place them on a graham cracker with a piece of chocolate. Take a second graham cracker and mash it on top to complete the s'mores. Be careful, the toasted marshmallows will have very hot centers.

Update video of our Caribbean Beach Oasis...taken July 1, 2009

Since we wanted a beach area complete with sand, we needed to spruce up the area with some color (plantings). We decided on planter boxes with vines and annuals and also wine barrels with planted Brandon cedars.

In the video below, he places the smaller boulders along the bottom of the new cedar fence. He first put down a drainage pipe in case of a pond over-flow, covered it with coarse sand and then places the small boulders on top to hide the pipe and to give some decor. The smaller boulders look great in between the cedar planters and wine barrels.

You can see that we purchased half wine barrels and cedar planter boxes. The wine barrels are for the tall Brandon cedars and the cedar planters are for the Black-eyed Susan vines (Yellow), the Wave Petunias in hot pink and Scaevola. This will give the needed color to the 'beach' area.

The image below on the right, taken June 15, 2009 shows the planted wine barrel and the planted cedar planter boxes. Click on the image to enlarge. The image on the left is recent as of July 2009.

Wine Barrels with Cedars

Black eyed Susan July 13, 2009

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