Buds

My hazelnuts are covered with catkins. I doubt that I will ever taste a nut from these shrubs but the squirrels will be pleased.

Berries

I have planted as many berry-producing shrubs as I can squeeze into the yard. It's interesting to see which ones get eaten and when. Some, like the serviceberries get snapped up as soon as they ripen. Others persist well into the winter and seem to get eaten when birds return in the early spring. Here's what is out there now:

Winterberries (Ilex verticillata)


Rose hips (Rosa virginiana)





American cranberry bush (Viburnum trilobum)

Interbay Mulch

Last year I tried a slightly different way of composting the yard waste. Interbay mulching is similar to sheet composting or lasagna gardening. You pile the debris into a long hump a couple of feet high and as logn as you like, then cover it with burlap. This originated in the Pacific NW where empty burlap coffee sacks could be had for the asking. I had a hard time finding burlap but finally tracked down rolls of it at the local farm co-op. The clerk there told me they stock it for the drama students at James Madison University. I criss-crossed cord over it and secured it with tent pegs to keep critters from digging it all up.

A couple of weeks ago I peeled off the burlap which was now pretty well sprouted with weeds. I raked up some lovely, finished black compost and shovelled it into the black compost bins for storage. I'll definitely use this method again but will not do it at the edge of my asparagus bed. It gets way too weedy for that spot.

No Mount Mulch

For the first time in several years there is no mulch pile in my driveway! On New Year's Day I got outside for an hour or so and shovelled and spread the last of it on the fruit trees.

The meadow is seeded!

I've spent 2 years preparing the soil and last week I finally got to plant! I took all the wildflower seeds and mixed them up in the garden cart with a mixture of peat, perlite and the dregs of potting soil bags, moistened well and stirred thoroughly. I broadcast the seeds by hand and then overseeded with three kinds of native grasses.

Prairie dropseed (Sporobolus heterolepsis) went along one edge. It was the most expensive and makes fairly low growing mounds so I wanted to show it off.

Side oats grama (Bouteloua curtipendula) is the tallest so went in a patch at the back as viewed from the house.

Little bluestem (Schizachyrium scoparium) covered the rest of the bed.

I've read that most of these plants will spend their first year growing deep roots and that it won't look like much above the soil surface. I will post photos as things sprout.

Wildflower meadow

I spent the weekend doing a final weeding of the prospective wildflower meadow. All the yard waste has composted down to a couple of inches and now that it's raked out it looks like brown velveteen. The seeds have either arrived or are on their way and in a few more weeks when it looks like the weather will stay cold I will sow the forbs and grasses.

Things I will plant next spring

• 3 more Sunshine Blue blueberries to replace the ones that got trampled.
• A couple more southern highbush blueberries to keep in reserve.
• Rosa alba maxima to be planted as a neighbor for Souvenir du Docteur Jamain
• Rose 'Safari', a tiny thing from Heirloom that is a gorgeous pinky, salmony color.
• A dozen Dodecatheon meadia, Shooting Star, ordered bare root from Prairie Moon, to be planted in front of the oakleaf hydrangeas with the Virginia bluebells.
• Magnolia virginiana ‘Moonglow’, a sweet bay magnolia. This will go in the front yard in the space that became plantable after my neighbor removed the dying maple tree.
• Aesculus pavia, red buckeye. This will go in Hagen's Woods to replace the redbud that quite mysteriously died.

Autumn projects

The weather finally cooled off, we had a couple of good, soaking rains that softened up the ground and I've finally made some progress on fall chores. The yard looks pretty respectable now.

• The bed along the fence is edged and weeded.
• The sprawling roses are now tethered to the fence.
• The daylilies and irises are planted.
• The pot ghetto under the apple tree has been cleaned up.
• The seedlings and rooted cuttings are outside where they will winter over.
• The 'meadow' is weeded and raked and ready to be sown with wild flowers and native grasses.
• The seedling wildflowers are planted in the 'meadow'.
• The asparagus has been cut back.
• I have started building this year's compost hump.
• The blueberries are weeded and ready to mulch.
• The fig is wrapped in row cover and mulched with a couple of bags of leaves I begged from a neighbor.
• Dug the red twig dogwoods out from under the big pine tree, planted 4 in the back hedge and gave the rest to my neighbor.

Still to do:

• Mulch the blueberries. I'm going to fill in around them so they become an
  extension of the mulched edge at the back of the lot.
• Shovel up last year's compost hump and see how it did under the burlap
  cover
• Weed and mulch the main rose bed.
• Once I'm sure the weather will stay cold I will sow the 'meadow'.
• Repair the garden shed roof. The poor shed needs to be replaced but this
  should get me through the winter.