A Prayer and a Wing

It began with excellent intention. 
A pot-bound tree needed its forever home.
But this wasn't  just any tree.
​This was Mike's tree.

When Mike passed several years ago   his wife encouraged those who loved him to  find a living thing to remember him by.
​I chose a miniature Japanese maple.  
​
Mike's tree has spent the last few years in a pot, waiting for me to decide  where it/he truly belonged. 

Inspiration came, as it often does, with swift kick to the head, (a.k.a. why didn't I think of the sooner?)

​After removing a long-dead shrub that had become thoroughly entangled with  jasmine vines, I uncovered what can only be described as a veritable PVC boneyard: abandoned pipes, mysterious reroutes, and flex tubing layered atop previous plumbing decisions.

A little more  excavation revealed further opportunity. Could the original water feature be reconnected to the newer flex tubing—which, for reasons known only to the gods of irrigation, had been bypassed...

Success! Or so I thought.
​
It took approximately one day of  water loss to discover the 10–20 mm gap in the slate behind the outflow pipe. Even though most of the water was going into the pond, a significant amount was leaking  backward into the planter bed.
Oops.
The fix involved applying waterproof sealant along the bottom edge of the perforated pipe and around the outflow area.
​Problem solved...

---

Mostly.

Then there was the pond  itself. Erosion had left its mark. The question became: how to repair   without actually 'swimming with the fishes'?
And then inspiration struck.

Scaffolding.
So Michelangelo!

---

Gaps were filed with pea gravel and slivers of slate, ​

---

followed by a layer of concrete patch. Once cured, everything  received a fresh coat of pond sealant.

Cairn assembled. Mermaid approved.

---

At last, Mike's  tree  is in  its forever home, complete with twinkly lights. 

And then, as often happens when a project is at completion, a neighborhood supervisor arrived to inspect the workmanship. He lingered for a  long while, stationary, while shimmying his wings.
 I took that as a good sign.