Past Project Update: The Palisade Garden Bed

 Here is an updated view of the garden bed we carved out of the edge of the thicket  last July.  It contains grasses divided from various areas of the landscape and the myrtle ground cover that was already there and moved aside during excavation.  Next year I will try to add some color and different textures but they will have to be very deer resistant plants.

Today

Completion Last Year

Below is the original clump of Flame Grass that the majority of the grass was divided from.  As you can see, it needs to be divided again.  It has gotten unruly and flattened out in the last rain.

A view along the back line of grasses.

A Johnson Perennial Geranium divided out of the Creek Bed Garden spills out of my PaPaw's hog boiler.

A horse-drawn plow from the neighboring farm.

Before

After

Below is one of the Foxtrot grasses divided in March.

And this is one of the Little Bunny grasses I divided the end of June.

Dahlia of the Day: My Forever

When You're Hot You're Hot

 Is it ever too hot to do yard work?  Apparently not.  Remember back in April when we opened up our septic to pump the tank?  Well, this spring was so wet, and the ground was so saturated, that we began to be concerned about the slow percolation in our septic field.  The one we had was a closed system designed for a two bedroom house.  There was no water outlet.  If the ground was saturated, as it certainly was, water just wasn't going to go anywhere very fast.  When we had this system put in back in 2011, the septic field was surrounded by woods., and there really wasn't any other option than a closed system that size.  Then in 2021 we removed most of the woods.  And now, we had easy access and elevation to drain a sand filter down to the road ditch.

So we dug up the yard.  Because, if you have ever had a septic system back up into your house, you will know that there is just about no amount of money that is worth taking that chance.

Now we have a big, beautiful sand filter that is permitted for three bedrooms, but actually big enough for four.  If anything catastrophic ever happened to this house, we would not rebuild it this small.  It is also a good selling point if the next owners ever wanted to add on.  

The filter drains down through where those trees were to the road ditch so it should never back up just because of saturation. We can do as much laundry as we want.  And boy, do we do laundry!  On days like this it is best just to undress straight into the washing machine.

After the excavator left, my husband spent several days with first a box scraper, then a york rake, getting the whole area graded and smoothed down.  Yesterday, we happened to find a nearby source of good topsoil that we needed to reseed the lawn over the sand filter.  The best time to use topsoil is when it is freshly dumped.  You don't want it to be rained on if you want to be able to spread it smoothly.  So, around noon, we began to repair the lawn.

Luckily, when we started, we were working towards shade.  And we had shade and a nice breeze to sit and cool down in.  Because the official temperature was 94F but both of my outdoor thermometers said 100F.  It took us about four hours.  We had to use the smaller tractor because one end of the filter is still a little like walking on a water bed, and the big tractor would have left deeper ruts.  Now we need to spread seed and hay so we can take advantage of upcoming rain and get some grass growing.

Below is a shot of our second family of Eastern Bluebirds at breakfast time.

ME FIRST!

Today In Pictures

 

A New Septic Sand Filter

Baby Snapping Turtle just passing through
Initially met him on the garden shed steps... eye to eye.
Had to come back and take a picture to prove it.  They're cute at this stage

Burning the spring brush pile between downpours
Including the top of that tree that fell in December

Golf Ball sized hail
And this had been melting for 10 minutes
Freaky lightening and tornado warnings

An inch of rain in 20 minutes
This was after half an hour.  the water was a runnin'

Time to hit the shower

Stick a fork in me I'm done

Spring Property Maintenance

 We have gotten a a lot of rain from these storms sweeping across the country.  I can't really walk across the back lawn.  The rest of the lawns are OK, but it stopped us from tackling any edging and mulching. The next early spring project on my To Do list is to remove the light blue Siberian irises from the well head...

Not a good day for digging.  But an excellent spot for Siberian Irises

... and replace them with some dark Caesar's Brother irises from the sidewalk area we are reworking. 

This nice clump of Irises are no longer where I want them

That project is going to have to wait, but in spring there is always another project to do.  We brought in a few yards of topsoil for repairing spots in the lawn.  We had it dumped up in the area where we took down all those trees and where we are gradually adding grass.  Rather than spend a lot of money on topsoil and grass seed we opted for the farmer's version of lawn repair.  We put down four bales of hay.  There is a lot of orchard grass seed in this hay and we are quite happy to have orchard grass up here.  After we get done using the pile of topsoil for other areas, whatever is left can be spread right there on the gravel and clay spot we dumped it on and covered with hay.

The first part of lawn repair will be filling in these holes.  Its time again for regular maintenance pumping out of the septic tank.  We uncovered the lids for the pumper and will fill the holes back in with fresh soil and plant grass seed.  They are just a little too big and deep to gracefully remove the sod in any way that we could piece it back together, but we could do that too.

Another post winter project - At the entrance to the big garage, we had a paver walkway that was crumbling.  We were tracking all kinds of grit and cement dust into the garage.  When we began to lift them, they completely disintegrated.

Then we had to decide on the easiest way to reconfigure the three that are still in good shape.  These pavers weigh 280 pounds each.  We use a lifter that the neighbor built for us so we can lift three foot pavers with the tractor.  There is a design quirk that makes it difficult to set pavers side by side, but without it there would be no way we could move them at all.

We decided on three in a row instead of a triangular configuration.

And then we started on the big project of the spring...

...removing the orange daylilies from the fence line.

This is hard work, but we need to do it while we still can to reduce the overall amount of work that these daylilies cause over the course of each year.  We got six sections dug out yesterday leaving nine more to go.  Then we will use the remainder of last year's mulch pile to fill in and level off the holes we leave.

Ad now news from the seed starting.  The teeny tiny Portulaca seedlings are putting out their first true leaves.  Portulaca has these weird, pointy, succulent leaves.  In the seedling stage, it takes a camera or a magnifying glass to see them!  They are so small!

And here is the sweet potato slip situation...

Feels Like Fall

 The hurricane spent twelve hours delivering less than half an inch of gentle rain and today is cool and cloudy and feels like October.  The garden is happy.

The indeterminate tomatoes are on the verge of ripening

I started some of my late season chores getting empty beds ready for next year.

We completed the last of the power pole projects.  We sank some gateposts next to the driveway into the area we cleared of trees back in 2021.  

The hard part was not planting the poles, it was getting them to match in height and location.

The poles mark the edges of the culvert pipe so if you take a big truck in there you won't accidentally hang a wheel off over the ditch.  And, if we want to we can string a chain across there to keep people from pulling in.  So far that hasn't been  problem.

Myrtle and Mulch

 Timing is everything.  Monday afternoon I set out to transplant all of the myrtle I had set aside in the shade from the recent wilderness reclamation.  As I finished and was watering it in it began to rain.  It rained all the next day.  Today was warm and sunny and tomorrow it will be overcast as the hurricane remnants arrive.  This weekend will be rainy and next week will be warm and sunny but not scorching hot.  Perfect summer weather for transplanting something.

Today we put on a final layer of mulch and placed some "yard art" in there.

As a reminder, below is what it looked like before.

That big round thing to the left of the plow is my PaPaw's hog boiler.  I have wanted to use it as either a water feature or a planter but have never found the right spot for it.  To use it as a planter I would have to drill drainage holes in it.  I have been hesitant to do that because who knows when you will need a hog boiler...

Next spring I will plant some blue perennial geraniums in front of it.

I still have to divide that one big grass into six sections and plant along the back but the root ball is awful hard and I will at least have to use a knife to cut it and maybe a Sawzall.  I know this because last fall I managed to whittle five sections off the edge and it was quite a chore.  Cutting through the center with a transplant spade will be nearly impossible.

Poop Deck Maintenance

As happens with many projects, you get one thing nicely refreshed and suddenly there are satellite projects that need to be addressed.  Yesterday it was Poop Deck Maintenance.  This is the area where I process my compost.  The Compost pile is almost always up against the Railroad Ties and this has rotted them out.  This... and the darn Viburnum roots.

The Poop Deck was constructed back in 2012 and it has held up very well.  In the corner, both second level ties were disintegrating, but the base ties below, and the cap ties were still OK.  We did have a couple of spare RR ties stored away for projects like this, and we had two ties that would work.
First you have to tear everything apart, and I was actually cleaning the house, so I did not arrive on scene until it was time to put things back together.  We propped the new ties above their designated spots, and then using the chainsaw, cut them to fit.

Two new corner ties.

And then all put back together.  It looks like nothing happened, but in reality it was eight hours of hot sweaty work with a lot of stinky creosote and some serious laundry generation.  Still to be done: drilling holes for new rerod and driving rods to pin the wall together.

The Palisade ~ Power Pole Project #2

pal·i·sade

/ˌpaləˈsād/

noun

1. a fence of wooden stakes or iron railings fixed in the ground, forming an enclosure or defense.

We spent all of March clearing the dead and dangerous trees out of the thicket along our west side beyond the garden.  This past week we created some separation between the native shrubs and the landscaped area at the end of the lawn.

This area has changed a lot in the past ten years.

2012

We started with a simple walkway across the lawn to the neighbor's driveway.

There were some sizeable trees along the edge.

We cut the grass very short and laid down mulch.

We added Myrtle as groundcover.

The mulched area butted up to "the Poop Deck" where I keep my compost.

Over the years we removed trees and added grasses and divisions of daylilies.  The deer use this as a thoroughfare to get to the thicket area.  There are always fresh hoofprints.  So the deer go in and the roots come out.  That is the problem with natural areas.  When they butt up to landscaped areas you have a constant battle on your hands to keep the weeds out of the loose and fertile soil.  I've blogged about this problem before.  Sometimes the area needs a complete reset.

The Deer Route

The Viburnum bushes spread by roots.  They are invasive and insidious. The Buttercup are almost as bad forming a strong net of crisscrossing roots.  Pulling one plant is no improvement.  There is always a root left to pickup where it left off.  Below is an example of how far one root can travel. 

 I hooked one sizeable Viburnum root that was coming out of the thicket, and by the time I got done pulling I had about thirty feet of root.  All branching from one source.

Along the roots there were nodes that were sending up shoots.  The baby bushes were easy to pull out, but there were always a dozen more sprouts below the surface waiting their turn.  Spraying did nothing.  Pulling was futile.

Six weeks of reweeding just waiting for their turn

When we were brainstorming the neighbor's retaining wall and found a source for used power poles, I told my husband that I had a spot where I could sure use a wall of power poles to hold something back.  After the retaining wall was finished we turned our attention to the problems at hand.  My husband's number one priority was to get rid of 18 feet of edging.  Step #1: dig a trench.

Step #2: Cut up a pole.

By the end of day one we had a little wall between the landscape bed and the lawn.  We can mulch right up to one side, and use the string trimmer on the lawn side.  Day two would be heading across the back.  The backhoe made short work of it.

It was easy digging since the bed was constructed of deep, screened topsoil and has been heavily mulched for several years.  Few serious roots has crossed over.  Mostly Poison Ivy which we had to spray weekly during the summer.  Beneath those Viburnum bushes is a thick carpet of poison ivy, and a lot of wild strawberry and Virginia Creeper.  All of those things are invasive and difficult to control.

When I proposed this project, my thought was to swoop the wall around...

"Around what?" my husband asked.  "Is there anything worth saving in there?"

No, not really.  Just a big Oak stump, a clump of Viburnum, and a crap-ton of Golden Rod, Aster, Buttercup and... you guessed it... Poison Ivy.  The Myrtle was doing its best to choke it out but it was fighting a loosing battle.

We spent the afternoon of Day #3 lopping, weeding, digging out Myrtle and assessing the problem.

Day #4 pulling stumps

lopping roots, bringing in fill for the holes and leveling

Day #5 was back to trenching and chain sawing

You couldn't plan it out this accurately.  The last pole dropped in with only a smidge to spare.  We'd rather be lucky than good.  We brought in "crusher run" gravel and tamped in each side.  That oughta keep the roots from invading!

And finally we added a layer of old shredded mulch.  This will keep things tidy until the weather is better for transplanting.  Then we will put down a final layer of mulch,

My plan is to divide up that large clump of Miscanthus Flame Grass that now looks out of place in the front.  First I'll continue the row of tall grass divisions along the back, alternating with lower Hameln Fountain Grass divisions and perhaps a few other varieties I have around.

There is enough depth to have a garden path down the center if I want.  I would like to have billowy grass contrasted with upright purple Sage and Salvia. Perhaps a dash of yellow like Coreopsis or Rudbeckia.  Anything that goes into this bed will have to be deer resistant and cut short in the fall so we can mulch and blow leaves across the bed into the thicket.  I dug and set aside several wheelbarrows full of the Myrtle.  It is in the shade and can be transplanted back in when we get some cloudy days.  Whew!  That was a week's work!