If You Leave It ...

... They will grow.

I blogged last year about a no mow zone where Great Blue Lobelia sprung up. This year they've really taken over the area.

Last year I had to weed out Japanese Stiltgrass, a nasty invasive (we still have it about the yard) but in this section the Lobelia are so thick I don't see any Stiltgrass. Yay!

Two Dogwoods, a Tulip Poplar (to replace the fallen Willow), and a few other natives along the woods edge comprise the the list of what we've planted in this area. Everything else came on it's own.

A testament to the resilience of the natural world, the deer fence, and laziness (although I did place the Willow limbs along the edge, and resurrect the Willow stump).

Quixotic

In my continuing quest to turn the front septic mound into a lush field of Carex pensylvanica, I ordered fifty more plugs from Pinelands Direct, during the Pinelands Preservation Alliance's annual spring deer food sale.*

And they delivered a hundred plugs. I guess it was buy one get one free? Perhaps I double clicked the "add to cart button"? No matter, I'll need them all. And then some.

The first thirty have been planted. The roofing shingles have proven to be very effective at killing the covered vegetation.

A couple days later the number of planted plugs is now sixty-five. I've also planted a dozen Blue-eyed Grass plants, moved from the edge of the road, before the township comes and mows them down (the mowing ended just up the road from us, I assume it will resume sometime next week after Memorial Day?). 

And now all one hundred plugs have been planted, and just before the rains came (again). If you look closely you'll also see a  Milkweed that I transplanted from elsewhere on the the mound.

But you can see that there is quite a bit of area for the sedges to expand into. And while the mound is mostly dry, it may be too sunny for the sedges to really thrive. Although they do seem to be doing ok. And have done quite well around out front door (which is behind me) which gets similar sun.

Even so, I might need to add a more aggressive spreading ground cover to the mix.

We'll see.

🦌  🌾  🦌  🌱  🦌

* For marketing reasons they call it a "Native Plant Sale", but they're fooling no one.

The Siege Continues

When we last left the story of the Battle of the Septic Mound, reinforcements, in the form of Carex pensylvatica plugs, had just joined the fray.

The troops have survived the winter and appear to be thriving.

The Pennsylvania Sedge is in bloom, although with not the showiest of flowers.

The Wild Strawberry is more obviously in bloom.

And more reinforcements are on the way, as the Pinelands Preservation Alliance again had their Deer Food Sale, and I ordered another round of Carex pensylvatica plugs, fifty this time.

And I also put those roofing shingles to good use. A nice Piney border. 

More Like A Siege

Previously in the Battle of the Septic Mound, we saw the initial planting of the Carex pensylvatica, and then the subsequent addition of the Fragaria virginiana, neither of which have New Jersey in the name, which is of course the state where I planted them.

This is what it looks like today.

Each spring and fall the Pinelands Preservation Alliance has a "Deer Food Sale", although for marketing reasons they call it a "Native Plant Sale". And in the Year of the Pandemic, the sales have both been online only. Which is nice because they don't sell out so fast.

And to continue the assault on the septic mound, and thwart the deer, I ordered twenty more Pennsylvania Sedge plugs. And today I planted all twenty-nine that they shipped to me (math is hard*). 

Here you can see the plugs, nicely mulched with pine needles. Expanding the perimeter of the battle zone.

Slowly but surely expanding and replacing the non-natives. And advancing the War on Lawn.

~~~~~~~~~~

* No, it really isn't. 

The Meadow Project

In my previous post of the same name, we saw the Meadow covered in tarps.

This past Saturday, I removed those tarps.

And as hoped and expected, the Japanese Stiltgrass was dead. That's a good thing. The goal was to kill everything down to the dirt. That is important, as the seeds I'll be sowing need good seed to dirt contact. So to improve that contact I next raked the dead vegetation away.

I had ordered a meadow seed mix, of plants native to our area, from Pinelands Direct, during the Pinelands Preservation Alliance's fall native plant sale.

Not surprisingly I choose the Birding Mix. As the area is approximately 1,100 square feet, a quarter pound bag was (I hope!) sufficient. I mixed the seed with clean sand, to make it easy to throw about. 

And then I walked. Back and forth and forth and back. The idea is to push the seed just into the aforementioned dirt. Professionals use a roller. I stomped about in my front yard. I wonder what my neighbors would think, had they been close enough to see me.

Once sufficiently stomped I covered the seeds, and bare dirt, with salt hay. This will protect the seeds over the winter. Prevent birds from eating them. Prevent other seeds from reaching the dirt (I'm looking at you Stiltgrass!). It, along with the border of downed branches, also serve to make it look intentional. Perhaps more important for folks trying this who have actual neighbors.

I also added some more of those downed branches in the Meadow area, for interest, pollinator habitat, and because they were lying nearby, having been used to hold down the tarps.

I also installed a small pond, using a molded plastic pond liner gifted us by our friend Terry. She was  having some serious problems with another invasive grass, Bambo, much more difficult to deal with than Stiltgrass, and as part of the overall eradication plan, the pond liner, and another larger one, needed a new home. Terry will also be seeding a Meadow this fall.

And then we'll both be waiting for springtime to see what comes up.

So check back in six months or so for an update.

Barb's Garden

In the Barb's Hike post I noted her love of gardening. When she moved to an assisted living home, having lost the use of her legs (she had been making progress at the home for awhile, walking as many as seventy steps in the before times) she asked if we could watch after her plants.

Of course we said yes.

These plants:

We had them on the deck until this past Sunday, when I moved them here, prior to planting them in what had been known as our Back Grassland.

I spent the better part of the day digging holes in the surprisingly rocky ground, to install each plant in its new home. 

Here is one such plant, tucked in next to the Sundial. This one still with foliage.

Many, like the one above, are now just bare branches. Their summer flowers long gone.

Once planted I covered the ground around them with cardboard, covered the cardboard with dirt, and covered the dirt with old plant stalks as the first layer of mulch. I plan to use leaves as another layer of mulch.

Here's a view from the other side of the Sundial. Barb's plants are all along the front edge. And in spring they will add color. And serve as a lasting memorial to a wonderful human being and friend.

The Back Corner

In The Meadow Project post I noted we had three new 'no-mow' zones in our yard this year. The first being the what we hope will be come a meadow next spring. The second was the Field of Blue.

This is the third one, the 'Back Corner'.

The area behind the dry stream bed is the no-mow zone. It's what passes for high ground in our yard. And at first glance it seems a bit barren.

Looking closer we find a nice patch of Carex albicans, White-tinged Sedge, as shown in the shot above and the one below.

There is quite a bit of this growing in the woods out behind our place, so it is not surprising that it would be in the yard.

What is a surprise, a pleasant one, is that we have so much coming up in the Back Corner. A nice, no-mow ground cover.

Contrast

What must the neighbors think?

Here is a current look at the Mini-Meadow.

Despite the heavy deer pressure in these parts it is doing well.

And a shot with the Mini-Meadow and The Meadow Project.

Hopefully, come this time next year, they'll be twins.

So, what do the neighbors think? That's a trick question, as we don't really have neighbors. And from the house across the street, (no not this place (which is for sale)), you can't see The Meadow Project. It's hidden behind trees.

Field of Blue

In The Meadow Project post I mentioned that there were three 'no-mow' zones.

One is on the woods edge, behind the Feeder Garden (from the house). It looks like this:

A field of Great Blue Lobelia.

And while we've planted this species in the gardens, we did not plant any out here. This just happened. Fantabulous and amazing.

How'd that Cardinal Flower get there?

Of course, they're all cardinal flowers ...

The Meadow Project

As an experiment this year, we decided to set aside three areas where we did not mow. Two were inside the Deer Fence. This is the story of the other one.

This is the side of the front yard across from the 'Mini-Meadow'. That project was a success, although we still struggle with deer browse. More on that later. The above image is how this bit of yard looked prior to the start of our no-mow experiment.

Here it is after the boundaries were marked with downed branches. It was off to a good start. A little grassland. Alas, things would go south form here (where does that idiom originate?).

Here is a shot just before I started to mow, the boundary logs moved away (oh the irony, mowing a no-mow zone!). It had become mostly a field of Japanese Stiltgrass, Microstegium vimineum, a rather insidious invasive.

The best time to mow this species in late August/early September, just before it flowers. So this was the time.

The next step in converting this plot to a meadow is to mow as close to the ground as possible. The idea is to kill the plants that are there and later replace them with more desirable species.

It took three passes with the lawnmower until I was able to mow at the lowest setting. The stilt grass was so thick the mower would stall if the setting was too low. But eventually I got it done.

This is how it looks now. A mishmash of tarps and cardboard covering the area. This will cut the light from reaching the plants below. They will die, returning nutrients to the soil. After a period of six to eight weeks the tarps can be removed. At which point we'll begin phase three, preparing the soil and sowing the seed. But that's a story for another post.

Incase you are wondering, and I'm sure you are, phase two will be extending the deer fence to enclose our entire property. This will protect the front yard, including this project and the Mini-Meadow. As well as, we hope, restore the understory in our woods. And that too will be a story for another post (or posts). If we don't do that, this area will become but a deer feeding station. A highly non-optimal result.

View From the Bench ...

... in the Bench Garden.

A pano, click to view bigafied

Here's a close up of the Bee Balm patch.

Last year, the house would have been completely visible, as the Bee Balm is 'chocolate cake' to deer.

That deer fence was a great investment.

The Busy (Mini) Bog

I noticed a hole in the Mini-Bog.

So I set the trail up to see what was going on.

This is what I found.

A baby Eastern Cottontail. Thankfully, it seemed disinterested in the four remaining Swamp Pinks.

Eastern Chipmunks, at least two. The one above, with the stumpy tail. Perhaps better seen below.

And another, tail intact.

I'm not sure which one is responsible for the holes.

A couple of birds also stopped by.

A Carolina Wren. One of many we have in the yard.

And an Ovenbird, more often seen then heard.

But clearly, it was the Chipmunk, or Munks, which were responsible for the holes.

Mini-Bog Take 2

Trouble begins ...

The mini-bog was sinking. Not good.

I had dug out and installed the mini-bog when it was very wet. Then we hit a dry spell, and the water went away. And the bog, a hole filled with peat moss, shrunk.

Drastic measures were called for. So I dug out the plants. And then I dug out the bog. I put in a liner, left over from the 'big bog', jabbed some holes in it, and put the peat moss back in.

And then a I added more peat moss. Next the plants were replanted. The ones that had survived that is.

I gathered some cedar bark from the back woods to use as edging.

So far it has been holding up. We'll see what happens in the heat of the summer. Fingers crossed.