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August 10, 2008
If you have been wondering what Native Suburbia looked like this Spring, then your wait is over. I went through my huge collection of pictures and narrowed them down a little for your viewing pleasure.
I called this the Mega Tour because I found it a little harder to exclude pictures this time and so this set contains over 80 pictures! There is more of a concentration on pictures of individual plants at different stages. I am currently considering how the Native Suburbia site will evolve as the project grows more mature. There will probably be fewer tour picture sets and more specimens.
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August 03, 2008
It is common for people to approach native plant landscaping from the "butterfly garden" point of view. In Native Suburbia, that was not our primary focus, but it has turned out to be a pleasant side effect.
There has been an abundance of blooms in our yard this summer and this has attracted numerous species of butterflies, bees and wasps. Every day we see busy insects working nearly every flower in the yard. Our most recent arrival is the Spicebush Swallowtail (Papilio troilus) pictured at left. They seem to really like the purple coneflowers, which worked out well for me. With so much focus on the flower, I was able to get up close and take the picture.
The insects' concentration on the flowers should also reassure anyone who fears bees and wasps. They are far more interested in collecting pollen and nectar than stinging anyone. In fact they can be just as visually interesting as butterflies if you take the time to look. Benia and I often observe them up close and have never been stung. Now if only those pesky mosquitos would learn to love nectar instead of my blood, then all would be peaceful in Native Suburbia!
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June 16, 2008The plants between the flagstones of our garden path are now short. That is because I mow them regularly. We finally decided to go with the cordless electric mower. We purchased a Homelite 20" Cordless Electric Mower from the Home Despot. It is not my favorite place to do business, but I was nervous about the purchase of this relatively new technology and I wanted to be able to return it more easily if something goes wrong.
So far there have been no problems. I brought it home and plugged it in to get it charging. The next day I took it for a spin around the path. As expected, it started right up. Despite what all the marketing materials say about electric mowers, this thing is not whisper quiet! It sounds like a very loud fan. It is certainly quieter than a gas mower, but still difficult to talk over. The best thing is that there is no yanking on a pull cord and there are no exhaust fumes.
But back to the cutting... I set the height at about 3.25" so that I can clear my rather bumpy stone path. I also like the way it lets the plants grow in between the stones, albeit in a dwarfed stature. I pushed it around the path and found that it takes two passes to cut the full width. Apparently the path is wider than the 20" cutting width of the mower. I think that the electric mower feels heavier than my old gas mower, but it is on wheels, so I don't have too much trouble pushing it. The exercise is good for me anyway.
The whole job of trimming all of the path winding through Native Suburbia takes less than 10 minutes. I do it about once a week and after 3 or 4 times I am still on the first charge. Of course my "mileage" is probably much better than that reported in the typical online reviews because I am not cutting a thick lawn. The path trimming job is a whole different chore. It remains to be seen how this electric mower will stand up to the spring mulching job.
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May 26, 2008I am continuing to work my way through the photo backlog. The latest set of pictures is from Autumn 2007 and it is now available for your viewing pleasure.
In some ways these pictures are starting to look very similar to previous years in Native Suburbia. I am constantly thrilled by the little things that I see in the yard, but I have been debating whether these photographic tours are still useful. My goal is to show how the project progresses from season to season and year to year. It really puts the timeline into perspective when you realize that it took several years for our yard to reach this point. There are still bare patches that have not yet decided what they want to be when they grow up.
I welcome feedback from you. If you are enjoying the pictures as they are, then let me know. If there is some aspect of the project that is missing, and you think it would be interesting, then definitely let me know.
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May 20, 2008I have a lawn mower. A powerful, stinky, loud, gas burning lawnmower. It was purchased many years ago when I bought my first house and I needed it to cut the lawn I had suddenly obtained back in 2000. You might be wondering what does this has to do with a path in Native Suburbia, where there is no lawn.
Now that Benia and I have created Native Suburbia in our yard, the lawn mower is only used once a year. Due to the close proximity of other houses, we have been hesitant to burn our native plants. In fact, I doubt such activity would ever be approved by the village of Bartlett. So in the Spring I have been using the lawn mower to mulch everything. This year, just as I was finishing the yard, I broke the pull string used to start the lawn mower. This made me consider alternatives to fixing it. Using it once a year may not seem too bad compared to the many times I drive my car, but the gas lawn mower is a powerful symbol of the the lawn lifestyle that I have rejected.
Things are getting a little more complex as I have determined that the mower may provide a solution to another problem we are having. Anyone that has seen the pictures of Native Suburbia knows that there is a flagstone path through the entire yard. The gaps between the stones are begging to be filled in. As the plants in our yard continue to multiply and thrive, we get many volunteers to occupy those gaps. Unfortunately, these volunteers would like to grow to be several feet tall, which is not conducive to path walking. In the past, we have been hand pulling anything tall that grows between the stones. This is a time consuming and back breaking chore. It also leaves bare dirt in between the stones except for the wood sorrel that pops up in some places. So getting back to the mower, I am back to considering a mechanized solution to keeping the path in a walkable condition.
I considered a cordless electric string trimmer. Of course the primary benefit would be a powered tool without the gas engine. It's portability would allow me to trim the path without dragging a cord all over my tall prairie plants. On the downside, it would leave tiny bits of nylon cord all over the yard. I may not be able to see them, but I would know that I was putting them there. I wondered if there was a more permanent solution to the trimming string. I wonder what would happen if I used a thin diameter, braided steel cable in place of the nylon string. If both ends were bound tightly it seems like it would last forever against mere plant material. It might be a little more dangerous, but even the nylon string could cause injury. So I would just be a little more careful and stay away from fences with this new mecha-trimmer.
I also considered a cordless electric lawn mower. This would be more powerful than the string trimmer, but also a lot heavier. It has metal blades that will last a very long time. It may still be able to serve the function of mulching my yard in the Spring in addition to maintaining the path during the summer. I just do not know if it will have enough power. I did a ton of review reading online and people either love these things or hate them. It is difficult to know how their experiences would relate to my needs. I also imagine that it would be faster and easier to clear a path by making a single pass over the path with this mower. The stones only make the path about 18" -24" wide anyway. I imagine the string trimmer would require a bunch of waving about to accomplish the job.
So I am still not sure what to do, but I have "weeded" the path once this year already and I would like to avoid a second time now that my back is healed up.
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May 18, 2008I finally got around to going through a bunch of pictures that we took in Native Suburbia last year in September. It turns out that I was a little premature in calling the end of summer and there was still plenty of flowers to see.
I know that I am falling behind, but go ahead and take a look at the latest set that I have posted. I promise that I will try to get some pics of Native Suburbia 2008 up before 2009 is upon us.
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April 27, 2008Benia and I went out and did some weeding yesterday. We spent about 3 hours crawling around the yard and pulling up things that weren't where they belonged. In some cases this included weeds, which in Native Suburbia is any plant that is non-native. Unfortunately we also found ourselves pulling up a fair amount of native plants. A lot of volunteers have sprouted up in the path that we maintain. It almost seems that seeds are more likely to germinate in the spaces between the stones than anywhere else. Maybe the stones capture the heat and warm up the soil around them faster in the Spring. In any case, we are not quite ready to turn our path over to 5 foot tall prairie plants. We need some nice short ground cover to go in between the stones but we are having a hard time finding anything native at our local nursery.
One thing we learned while doing all this weeding is that we are getting older and probably were a little too lazy over the winter. The sore muscles sang out today and reminded us that we may have jumped in a little too enthusiastically this year.
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April 23, 2008I poked my head out of my cave (also known as the computer room) and it seems that Winter is over. A new growing season is quickly ramping up. For all the caretakers of cool season grasses that means the "sounds of summer" are already here. I was saddened to hear all the lawn mowers firing up last weekend already!
In the interest of full disclosure, I actually used my lawn mower to mulch up the leftover plants from last season. Burning does not look like a viable option in our neighborhood, so I need some way to clear the way for the next season's growth. We are still trying to determine what our long term maintenance plan will look like.
Benia and I have already toured the yard many times. There is so much to see in Native Suburbia! This is an amazing time of year as we go from zero to 6 feet in 6.2 weeks. (OK, I don't actually measure, but I liked the way that sounded.) Since we have no lawn and our native plants are still sparse in some areas, things look pretty barren after the snow melts. As soon as we got a few sunny days though, things started sprouting all over. To give you an idea of the enjoyment we get out of our yard tours here is an email that Benia sent after a walk she took without me. Things are moving so fast that these are new developments since the day before!
1. Another mayapple sprouted up where the 2 newer ones are, near the ash tree. There are also 2 brand-new mayapples just behind the hairy wood mint.
2. There are many little Solomon's seals coming up on both sides of the path near the ash tree. The first false one appears to be opening up and spreading its leaves out more. There are going to be so many! :)
3. The little Pennsylvania sedges near the big viburnum are fluffing out nicely. Perhaps a photo is in order?
4. Still no sign of the mayapples near the maple, but I did notice a new trillium or two crammed into the crowded spot of anemone/geranium farther from the path than the original trillium bunch. I could tell by the 3 triangle-shaped leaves around the center. It looks like the others.
5. The original bloodroot lost all its petals already, but the second one appears to be about to open up soon. Both leaves were still curled around the stem.
I only had a few minutes and of course, didn't want to leave.
-Benia
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October 14, 2007Over the course of the last two weekends, Benia and I purchased and planted about 200 native plants. This was the culmination of the final phase our our lawn removal goal. Native Suburbia is 100% free of traditional lawn of any sort. Officially this happened earlier this summer, when we smothered the lawn in the parkway. It has been cooking under all that mulch and newspaper for over 3 months, so it was time to plant.
We had been seeing the barren mulch covered area in our front yard all summer, and we were very excited to be doing something about it. Since the parkway is a fairly narrow patch next to the sidewalk, we chose plants that tend to grow shorter than 24 inches. There may eventually be taller volunteers from other parts of the yard, but for now we are stacking the deck on the shorter side.
Some of the species we planted:
- cleft phlox (Phlox bifida)
- heart-leaved meadow parsnip (Zizia aptera)
- pale beard tongue (Penstemon pallidus)
- path rush (Juncus tenuis)
- purple love grass (Eragrostis spectabilis)
- violet bush clover (Lespedeza violacea)
- wild petunia (Ruellia humillis)
I cannot wait until next year to see how everything fills in. It will be nice to move on to the next phase of Native Suburbia. We will still be weeding, but now we can watch as our native landscape matures.
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October 09, 2007I responded to my neighbor's attorney, Mr. James G. Wiard, and indicated that I do not give permission for them to have access to my property. I just don't trust them to use good judgement in trimming the tree.
I did offer to meet with their tree trimmer to discuss the trimming of specific branches. I won't give unqualified access to the tree, but if the professional wants to work with me, I will at least hear him out. I will be surprised if they take me up on this offer.
So now we wait once again to see what the tree hating neighbor will do.
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September 30, 2007
Return of the Tree Hating Neighbor
As mentioned in a previous post, I have been corresponding with my neighbor's attorney, Mr. James G. Wiard, about my river birch (Betula nigra). In my response to his initial letter I declined to trim the tree. I made it clear that if the neighbors feel compelled to destroy the aesthetic appeal of the tree through excessive pruning, they must not overstep their legal rights while doing it.
Today I received another letter from Mr. Wiard. He indicates that a professional tree trimmer has been engaged to prune branches overhanging his clients' property. Now they are requesting permission to have access to my property so that they can cut even more of the tree. The request is presented in the guise of attempting to do the pruning properly. If I were to approve such access the tree would surely lose a large portion of its crown. While collar cuts are the proper method to use when pruning trees, I fear what these ignorant people would request of the tree trimmer if he had access to the trunk. My only defense at this point is to keep their tree trimmer off my property and force them to make lateral cuts further from the trunk. In this manner, the tree trimmer may be able to appease their thirst for innocent sap, while still maintaining some of the tree's symmetry.
The sad thing is that there is no way I can make these people understand that their actions are pointless. The trees in my yard will continue to follow their natural cycles despite any disfiguration that they may inflict upon on the one. There will still be pollen, seeds and leaves blowing in the wind and I will be glad to see it, for it means that nature is still surviving despite mankind's attempts to defeat it.
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September 06, 2007The official end of summer is typically marked by Labor Day. There is still plenty of activity in Native Suburbia, but I know this is the last big splash before fall. It is exciting to see the culmination of all the plants I have been watching since they first poked through the dirt 4 months ago, but at the same time, I am sad to contemplate the approach of another long winter.
Take a late summer tour through the latest set of pictures and enjoy this great time of the year.
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August 30, 2007Today I received a letter from my neighbor's attorney. It contained a threat of "radical defoliation" against my tree, when they "hire a professional tree trimmer to cut all the way back to the property line".
The tree in question is a beautiful river birch (Betula nigra), which resides at the front corner of my house. As birches naturally do, this tree drops twigs, seeds, pollen and leaves. My neighbor refers to these as "effluent" and believes that the "mealy substance" given off by my tree is clogging his gutters. Check out these pictures that he sent me as evidence.
As you might have guessed, my neighbor is one of those people that believes that the outdoors should look like a living room. His yard contains an expanse of perfectly mown lawn that he never uses. There are a few shrubs pruned into submission. Of course there are no leaves or sticks out of place. Any strays are either vacuumed up or thrown into my yard. This explains why he is too ignorant to appreciate the benefits of a tree and why he confuses seeds with effluent.
Now I am being asked to trim the tree to his satisfaction. I will not be complying with that request. He has a legal right to trim any branches that hang over the property line, but I am not legally bound to help. The tree is healthy and poses no danger to his property. He greatly exaggerates the nuisance factor. I can say this confidently, because I have not one, but two of these trees in the front of my house and I experience no clogging of my gutters.
Since it is illegal to cause the death of a tree owned by your neighbor, I hope that he does hire a professional tree trimmer. Maybe a professional will be able to satisfy my neighbors needs without killing the tree. It would be a shame if my neighbor was forced to pay me for a tree that he hates so much.
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August 20, 2007I was on a roll so I went through a few more pictures. Take a tour of Native Suburbia in Midsummer 2007.
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I love sharing pictures of Native Suburbia on this site. Benia and I take tons of pictures, but unfortunately it takes some effort to sort through them and bring you only the best! So it has taken all summer, but I have finally gotten around to putting together a tour of what the yard looked like in April and May. Check out the Spring 2007 picture set if you haven't had a chance to see in person already.
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August 11, 2007Today we hosted a Wild Ones picnic in Native Suburbia. We always enjoy sharing our yard with others and it was particularly nice to be among others who appreciate our efforts.
A lot of pictures have been taken this summer, but I have been too busy enjoying the outdoors to get them up on the site. Keep checking back, I hope to get caught up in the next couple of months.
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July 15, 2007Benia, our on-staff plant identification specialist, has been hard at work. She has added many new pictures to the specimen collection. It is easy for us to take many pictures, but it is a lot more work to actually identify the plants and write the captions for them.
Take a peek at what we have seen in Native Suburbia. Go to the Pictures page and look around.
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May 25, 2007
Benia recently discovered many oleander aphids (Aphis nerii) on some newly planted butterfly weed (Asclepias tuberosa). We were concerned that these non-native visitors might eat us out of leaf and stem. After some thought we decided to just leave them alone and let nature take its course. Someone on the Yahoo Group for Wild Ones mentioned that predators may show up and balance things a little.
Today we spotted a ladybug (Coccinella septempunctata) patrolling the butterfly weed. Hopefully it was hunting for aphids.
It is so exciting to see everything that is happening in Native Suburbia. Every day we see something new. A new flower, a new insect, a new bird, or a new interaction between any of the above. Replacing the lawn with this native landscape has turned out better than we imagined.
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May 24, 2007The Mourning Cloak (Nymphalis antiopa) caterpillars have been a star attraction in Native Suburbia lately. I visit them every day before and after work. Their host tree is a few leaves lighter, but it is not being stripped as much as I had feared. I think it will be able to survive the experience. The caterpillars have just shed their skins for the third time which means that they will be pupating soon. I noticed that there are not as many of them crawling back and forth along the branches as when I first discovered them. Yesterday I observed one reason for their decline in numbers.
While I was visiting the little mass of leaf munchers with my camera, I noticed a paper wasp (Polistes dominulus) flying around and checking things out. At first it appeared that he was randomly passing by. He landed on a branch for a second. He took to the air and "bounced" off the mass of caterpillars, seemingly by accident. Just a lazy afternoon of flying in the warm breezes.
Suddenly, it became apparent that he was just sizing up the situation. He landed and walked over to a caterpillar on the edge of the group. There was some defensive wriggling and shaking, but the wasp was not deterred. He maneuvered into position and the next thing I knew the caterpillar was hanging from his jaws. For the rest of the story see the pictures that I took.
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May 21, 2007
Benia and I were touring the yard today when we came upon a squirming mass of caterpillars in a quaking aspen (Populus tremuloides). I snapped a few pictures and we immediately checked them out on the computer. Benia quickly identified our new visitors as Nymphalis antiopa caterpillars. When they grow up, they are known as the Mourning Cloak butterfly.
A big part of the Native Suburbia philosophy is to provide habitat for animals. We love to see butterflies of all kinds fluttering around the yard. Our kind hearts are tested though, when we see a mass of 50 caterpillars working their way up a branch and eating every leaf. We only have 3 quaking aspens and they are all next to one another. Could these hungry little caterpillars wipe them out? I could cut them off at the pass now and increase the survival chances for the trees, but that would mean killing all the caterpillars. Am I prepared to do that? These are the tough decisions of the backyard nature preserve.
See Nymphalis antiopa on Wikipedia for more info.
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May 12, 2007We spent most of today planting in the front yard. This is the area where we smothered the grass last summer. A bunch of plants were added late last year, but while many of them are coming back, it still looked pretty barren.
We started with a trip to The Natural Garden and ended up coming home with 103 plants. It took about 3 hours to get them all in the ground. Benia and I are not as young as we were last year. There were complaints from sore knees and backs, but it was all worth it to us. There isn't quite as much open space, but still more than we would like. Hopefully the plants will help us out a little and fill in on their own. This is getting to be an expensive hobby.
This spring has been a great joy for us. We have been walking around the yard watching as every day something new pops up. A trillium here, a mayapple there, and wild geraniums everywhere. The grasses are coming back bigger and thicker than last year. It is all very exciting to us.
No pictures this time, but there will be some new ones soon.
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March 03, 2007
The bitter cold spell that we were having has broken. Temperatures have made their way up into the 40's and then back into the 30's. There has been rain and now there is snow on the ground again. We like to look out into Native Suburbia through the big window on the back of the house. (Hey, we like nature, but not freezing our butts off!)
What we have noticed lately is that the path we have laid out is pretty popular with the critters who visit our yard. All of the tracks you see in the picture are non-human. Most of them are made by the opossum who visits frequently and often stays under the deck. There are a few bunny trails as well. And finally there is evidence that a big domestic cat is still passing through regularly. I really wish people would keep their cats in the house! We are trying to provide a habitat for the wild animals upon whose territory we have encroached, not a playground for well fed house cats.
But the real point of this post is to remember that even though our plants are not doing much at this time of the year, life still goes on in Native Suburbia.
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December 23, 2006In my quest to provide you, my loyal readers, with more pictures of the Native Suburbia project, I have posted a new set called Autumn 2006.
This almost catches me up with things for this year. There are still a lot of specimen pictures to be processed and added to the Specimen Collection, but that will come slowly over the next couple of months.
I would love to hear from anyone who is looking at all the pictures that I post. Are you enjoying them? Are they boring? Too many? Too few? Is there something that you would like to see that is not being covered?
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December 18, 2006It has been too long since I posted new pictures. Native Suburbia put on a nice show this summer. We saw many new plants in bloom and there is even more potential for next year as more plants mature. So many pictures were taken that it was hard to choose which ones should be posted on the site. After much deliberation, I still ended up with about 70 pictures showing what happened in August and September. The new set is called Late Summer 2006.
I hope they give you a little taste of the wonderful alternative that native plant landscaping provides./native_suburbia | Permalink (0 comments)
December 02, 2006
The first snowfall of the season hit us yesterday and it was a big one. It wasn't fun shoveling all of that snow, but it did make for some nice scenery in our yard.
It was very satisfying to see the various stalks and seed heads sticking up above the snow. This winter interest certainly sets Native Suburbia apart from the other yards in the neighborhood.
The coolest part was how our "rain" garden looks in the snow. Since we just created it last spring, this was the first time we saw it covered in snow. Recall that our rain garden is fed by our sump pump as well as a downspout. This means that a fresh supply of water is being pumped into the area on a regular basis. It looks like a small stream peeking out of the snow. We are hoping that birds will be attracted to this open water source. They can even sample some seeds that are still left around the yard as well.
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September 30, 2006Benia and I went shopping today at The Natural Garden. Fall is a great time to shop because they discount their natives by 20%. (They may discount other stuff as well, but I don't know since I never buy it.)
So we ended up with the following, mostly because it was what they had in stock.
- 2 American plum (Prunus americana)
- 1 American Filbert/Hazelnut (Corylus americana)
- 2 New Jersey tea (Ceanothus americanus)
Native Suburbia is not very big, so this was all we had room for. It will be interesting to see how the plum gets along with the river birch (Betula nigra) that I planted it next to. I have read that that plum can be aggressive, so maybe the large birch can deter its spread.
The New Jersey tea is actually going in the back yard next to the house. I wanted to fill a space left when I took out a big amur maple a few weeks ago.
In addition to shrubs I also bought another 60 plants to fill in around the new shrubs in the front yard. Since we smothered the grass in June, the front has been completely barren all summer.
I will be doing more planting over the next few days. It will take a little longer than usual because my planting partner, Benia, is injured from a recent car accident. The whiplash she suffered in the collision from the rear has really put her out of commission. We hope to have her back digging in the dirt as soon as she feels better.
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September 16, 2006Today was another busy day in Native Suburbia. I removed three more non-native bushes from the yard. This was the continuation of a concerted effort that I have been working on for several weeks. I am getting pretty good at digging these things up. It is hard work though. I even broke the shovel that has been with me for the past 6 years. We all know that it is not the right tool for prying things up, but we just can't help ourselves. I have had good results with an old 2x4 as well. Leverage is the key. One thing I learned is to leave a good strong part of the trunk when cutting away the branches. This gives you something to pry the root ball out of the ground with.
The bushes that I have removed recently:
- amur maple (Acer ginnala)
- Japanese yew (Taxus cuspidata)
- mock orange (Philadelphus virginalis)
- star magnolia (Magnolia stellata)
- European cranberry (Viburnum opulus)
There is only one non-native bush still left in the yard. It is a rather large lilac in the front by the house. I haven't decided what to do with the spot that it occupies, so its death penalty has been delayed for now.
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September 07, 2006Today I mowed the tiny strip of lawn that still exists on the parkway. It took me about 5 minutes. Previous to this, I had not started the lawnmower since July 2nd. I once again cut it as low as the mower would go, so I will not be cutting anymore this year.
The past two months have been an interesting experiment. Having been crippled by a brutal beheading from my mower and no supplemental watering, the lawn grasses barely grew at all. Nature stepped in to take care of the problem though. The parkway was gradually covered with several native annuals such as spotted spurge (Chamaesyce maculata), Canadian horseweed (Conyza canadensis), and pilewort (Erechtites hieracifolia). While these are not the most prized of native plants, they are doing their job. They moved in and grew in a hostile environment. I have learned to appreciate a wide variety of plants, even those without showy flowers. These pioneer plants were doing an admirable job of reclaiming land that was serving no purpose other than requiring me to mow it.
Next summer I may accelerate the transition to native plants, but for now I will watch and learn how it is done naturally.
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July 30, 2006If you are interested in what has been happening in Native Suburbia lately, then you will be happy to know that I have posted a set of midsummer 2006 pictures.
Some of the pictures show that many of the grasses and forbs in our yard are lying down. It is rather disappointing. Everything was looking so grand until the beginning of July when it seemed that every time it rained or the wind blew, more and more of our plants would fall down. I wonder if this is happening because Native Suburbia is only in its second growing season. Is this what we are going to be looking at every year? I sure hope not. If you have any ideas about what is happening or any reassurances that this is normal and it will get better, then please let me know.
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July 19, 2006We are getting much better at identifying plants, but there are still many that defy our attempts to label them. If you are an expert or just want to give us your best guess, then check out the latest entries in Help Us ID.
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July 12, 2006
Mowing Time Reduced Considerably
I was getting really tired of spending 15 minutes cutting the patch of lawn that was still present in the front yard. So Benia and I decided it was time to execute the second phase of our lawn smothering. We followed the same approach as before, using newspaper and mulch to cover the grass after I gave it one last buzz cut with the lawnmower.
One thing to note is that the front yard does not have a fence separating us from the neighbors. We decided to create a no-grow zone about 18" wide on both borders. Instead of newspaper we put down corrugated boxes, with the hope that the weeds will have a harder time getting through. We will attempt to keep the area clear so that the neighbor's lawn does not spread into our yard.
We included a flagstone path in the front yard as well. It is a lot of work to move all that rock, but we like the way it looks. I just wish we had more room so we could make it wider. But that is a story for another day.
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June 21, 2006Today was the first time we have ever had anyone from the neighborhood show interest in our uniquely landscaped yard. We were working in the front yard putting in a new flagstone path. A guy from three houses down walks up, nods in the direction of the mulch covered yard and asks "What's going to happen with all this mulch?"
Benia and I have discussed what the neighbors might be thinking about our yard, but of course we could only guess. So at first I wasn't sure where this guy might be coming from. He followed up with "Is the grass going to come back through it?" I answered that the grass would not be coming back and that it was our intention to foster the growth of native plants instead. Further conversation made it clear that our neighbor thought we were trying to create a better lawn by starting over. Once it was made clear that we were actively working to eliminate the lawn, he was actually interested in the concept of our alternatively landscaped yard. I gave a quick tour of the back yard which is further along in the transformation and hopefully it made a good impression. There were questions about "flowers" and weeds of course. Unfortunately, it is mostly grasses blooming in our yard right now, so there wasn't a lot of showy color. I encouraged him to consider native plant landscaping in a part of his yard and invited him to stop by if he has any other questions on the subject. Overall I think it went well and we were glad to get some feedback.
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June 07, 2006I am making an effort to get up to date with putting pictures online, so for the second day in a row there are new pictures to see. The new set is called Mass Planting 05/2006 because in one weekend in May, Benia and I planted 168 plugs.
As you may know if you have followed our story from the beginning, Native Suburbia was primarily started from seed. We had mixed results with this approach. In some areas, the plants burst forth and made our dreams come true. In other areas we were not so lucky and the ground remained barren. As we started our second growing season since the beginning of this project, our impatience grew. It was getting hard to keep the weeds out of these barren patches and it just wasn't very nice to look at. The rain garden was the tipping point in our decision to buy plugs instead of waiting for the seed to fulfill its promise. The new rain garden was basically a hole in the mud without plants, so we needed to give it a kick to get it started. Since we were already going to The Natural Garden for that, why not pick up a few plants for the shady area in the front as well? The actual number of plants needed required two separate trips and two days to plant!
A week later we went up to Wisconsin to visit my mother. She lives in a rural area on a property that contains some areas of native plants. Unfortunately these areas are being systematically destroyed by my relatives who are doing their best to cut and plow everything they can. We had limited room to transport plants, but we rescued 24 specimens including trillium, wild geranium, Solomon's seal, false Solomon's seal, Virginia waterleaf and mayapple. These were perfect additions to the shady areas in our yard.
Then last weekend we went back to The Natural Garden again to get another 60 plants to fill in around the deck and in the grassy patch by the back fence. We wanted to mix a few forbs into the grasses and fill in some open areas that were being taken over by weeds.
With all of these new members of our native plant family this ought to be an exciting year in Native Suburbia.
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June 06, 2006I finally processed some of the many pictures we have taken. This is what you have been waiting for, so check out the Spring 2006 and Rain Garden picture sets.
The Spring 2006 pictures show what our yard looks like when it first wakes up from a long winter. There is not a lot to see, but we were very excited to see the plants coming back. The purpose of showing these pictures is to document the entire lifecycle of Native Suburbia. Everyone always shows beautiful flowering prairies when they talk about this kind of landscaping. We wanted to show the ups and downs associated with establishing a native landscape.
The Rain Garden project is something we did to make better use of the water coming off the roof and from the ground via our sump pump. Instead of shuttling the water "away", we diverted it into a depression that we fondly refer to as "The Pond". This created a new type of habitat in our yard where plants that like it a little wetter could thrive. Instead of taxing the storm drains in our area we are letting nature do the water reclamation for us. The plants are young right now, but we can already see that they are making a difference in taking up the water that would normally keep draining back into the basement. Perhaps you will be inspired to do something like this in your yard. It is both beautiful and useful.
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May 15, 2006
Busy weekend in Native Suburbia
We spent both Saturday and Sunday planting. It rained a little, but overall it was just a little cloudy and cool. I actually thought it was great weather for planting. The soil was soft and moist. The sun wasn't baking our new plants on their first day. But most importantly I didn't get too hot. When it was all over 168 plants had been added to our family. This effort was primarily focused on our new rain garden. We also decided that the seeds we planted in the front yard were not cooperating, so we jump started things a little.
As usual, we took pictures, but I haven't gotten a chance to sort through them and put captions on yet. Stay tuned.
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April 09, 2006Things have been busy around the web site. I have finally sorted through the collection of plant pictures that we took late last summer. Check out the new additions on the Pictures "Forbs" page.
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April 07, 2006
Other Yards With Native Plants
It is still early in the season for Native Suburbia, so there isn't much to see. But I have added some links on the resources page to other yards that have successfully implemented a prairie landscape. If you have a site that tells your story please let us know so we can add a link.
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February 03, 2006We decided to take a few pictures of Native Suburbia in winter after the latest snowfall. While not as colorful as the summer pictures, hopefully they will hold you over until things warm up again. They were actually taken a couple of weeks ago, but I just got around to posting them.
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December 16, 2005Native Suburbia is now covered in snow. A few Canada wild rye seed heads are standing proudly and adding a little interest to the landscape. With the arrival of winter, not much is going on outside, but we are busy making plans for next season.
We have been considering the addition of a few nesting boxes to the yard. We have been inspired by a show on the Animal Planet channel called "Backyard Habitat". Our native plants are not yet dominating the landscape, but perhaps the birds will still appreciate a safe place to build a nest. So we will be occupied with bird research this winter.
Before the snow fell, we planted more seeds around the yard. We used a "savannah mix" from The Natural Garden. The trees and houses surrounding Native Suburbia don't always let a lot of sun in, so we are hoping that these types of plants will fit in better. Our planting technique was modified this season as well. Instead of broadcasting the seeds directly onto the mulch, we raked the mulch off the soil first. This was safer to do this year because all of the lawn was gone. We mixed the seeds with slightly moist sand and spread them on top of the soil. Then they were covered with a thin layer of mulch (about 1"). Now we hope for the best in the Spring.
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November 20, 2005There is a new picture set available that details our final battle against the buckthorn. We were conflicted about cutting them down because of the food and shelter they provided for the animals. In the end, their aggressive, non-native status convinced us to remove them from Native Suburbia.