Progress Report on the north garden upper slope development


Wood Rat, stripping off the bamboo so it can be put on right. His son did the erosion control work.

I'm constantly amazed (as a person who grew up in tiny apartments and corporation housing in Scotland) to have this large demesne. Constantly. My husband and step-son are working on the fence and most of the mulching and I'm preparing plants and helping mulch and I built the stone stairs.

The general scene of work.

This is just a quick progress report. I want to get out there. Wood rat is already hammering on the fence and by end of day today that part (rework) should be done, and mulching done. I'm waiting till I can saturate the soil to plant, and will plant only where I"m going to water until rains come, if they ever do.

As Chris Todd taught in a recent class, we put first arborist mulch, then jute netting, pinned, then arborist mulch. We only need some erosion control till the plants get going. The netting will degrade after a year or two. I'll tidy up the bottom (shown here) when I put a few stones along building retaining walls where it looks most unstable. 

To the right of the stairs, my stepson also put the erosion control stuff, and I watered it last evening.

The wooden steps down from the platform are TBD and so are some small retaining walls here and there along the bank of the path.

I lifted all the plants from the "wetland bed" - which is going to be repurposed into a shade house for growing out propagated plants - and gosh there were a lot from a small space. Here are just some…




I can't wait to tuck in ferns and redwood sorrel and melic grass and irises and ribes on the shadier ends of the path, and needle grasses in clumps all over, and coffee berry in the sunnier spots, and epilobium and - yes, I'm pretty excited!

I can certainly wait for the inevitable weeding of weedy grasses and mustard and leafy spurge and sour grass etc etc — which I'm so not looking forward to! But with the landscaping in place to motivate me, I'll be sure to stay on top of it. And who knows - some good things may pop up too, wild and native, among the nasties.

Comments

Town Mouse said…
Looks like great fun! Can't wait to see it! Now let's have some rain soon.