All of these before pictures were done approximately one year ago. It is really amazing just how much changes in one year, even if it is only winter time you can still see some major differences. The main differences being that we now have grass. Grass is good, grass is GREAT! It pretty much stops erosion; especially in the winter; is a very nice color (green), and helps to hold the whole landscape together; both literally and figuratively.
We start with the newly constructed pond. It has been just over one year since I opened this pond up. It is taking me longer than I had expected to get the balance just right for the fish and water clarity, but it is coming along okay. I have added drift roses around the far perimeter, almost finished the brick patio, and some ornamentation. The pond is now looking like it has always been here and not as though it is still newly constructed.
The entire build site suffered severely from the build process. Not only did we have about one to two feet of topsoil bulldozed out of the way for the house, but we had the complete frontyard dug up and trenched to a depth of five feet in order to put the geothermal lines in the ground. The backyard was dug up for the septic system and curtain drain, and the side yard had a well drilled. Needless to say going into 2015 we had a mess on our hands. Think mud, mud, and more mud. Throw in some rocks and you pretty much have the picture.
One year later we can now see some green. This green is deceptive though. I put over 100 pounds of KY-31 fescue seed on the back and frontyards in the fall of 2014. Some of it germinated but most did not or what did perished over the summer last year. With no fescue, weeds like crabgrass and ragweed quickly moved into this area. While those weeds were green during the summer and could be mowed, they quickly disappeared once the weather turned cold in the fall. I then spread another 50 pounds of KY-31 on the frontyard. The lush green you see is a result of that seed germinating. These young seedlings are very tender and not well established so we have to be careful when we walk on the yard. Nonetheless, it is green and not brown anymore. I hope these seedlings grow well come this spring so that I don't have as many weeds as last summer.
Looking west down the frontyard we really see the damage done to the ground due to all the digging and traffic. Little trenches caused by the winter rains are quite obvious. The railroad ties are patiently awaiting the time when Mr. Fix-it and I can place them in the vegetable garden. The newly planted sawtooth oak tree is doing okay.
One year later we now have a bunch of newly grown seedlings of the KY-31 grass. There are still tons of bare spots but I will slowly work on those. Most of the erosion has stopped but I still have a lot of problem areas to work out. The railroad ties are in place in the vegetable garden and the workings of a new patio are in place to the left of the picture. I hope to finish this patio soon. I'll be using leftover bricks from the house build. I did all of the clean up from the house build and through salvaging the culled bricks I managed to recover three pallets of leftover bricks! Even though these bricks have holes in them I will be placing them on their side around a firepit and I think the final outcome should be quite nice. Not to mention I found a productive way to use all the leftover brick-free-might I add.
The five foot deep trenches for the geothermal lines meant the area of the frontyard would settle quite a bit. In some areas I had to backfill more than a foot in order to compensate for settling. All of the leftover topsoil was respread upon the property and I did all of the fine grading. I asked my backhoe guy to just pile up leftover topsoil in this area of the vegetable garden because not only did I want to compensate for settling, but I wanted raised beds in the vegetable garden. I think most of the settling and backfilling is over now and the vegetable garden; while not completely finished; has come a long way.
The same area now with its beds of irises and raised beds of vegetables (though there is not much growing right now). This is the west side of the garden.
The center of the garden contains a raised strawberry bed; which was put in place fairly quickly last year.
I also added a raised herb bed and more vegetable beds. I mulched the paths with crush n run gravel.
The east side of the vegetable garden with its piles of dirt awaiting proper placement.
Now the beds are all made up and everything is in place. Grass is still quite bare or even nonexistent in a good amount of places. I know from experience it takes a few years to get a good lawn going and I have patience (do I have a choice???). Here's hoping....
in the garden....
Words and Photos Property of In the Garden Blog Team, In the Garden
This spring has been such an awesome spring! The trees are leafing out, butterflies are a flying, frogs are a croakin, bluebirds nesting and no late freezes! Who can complain? Plus, this is our first spring in our new home in the country. Country living is not for everyone but for Mr. Fix-it and I who are both nature lovers-it is the only way. To fully appreciate country living I think you have to live with nature and enjoy it. There is no better way than to take a walk around the woods and check out the wildflowers. I did just that for several hours, and I thought you all might like to see them too-tho virtually. Last year I also posted on spring wildflowers at Tiger Way Gardens but as I look at that post I see most of them are ones I transplanted to the farm. Most of the ones you see today will be wild grown wildflowers with the exception of two shrubs that I transplanted.
We have over sixty acres of rolling terrain that has wet springs, a natural pond, and is mostly all wooded with the exception of our homesite and Wildflower Hill. The soil is acidic having a pH in the range of 5.5. Wild blueberries, columbo, and a multitude of flora live here along with the local fauna. We start with trilliums. It is ironic I transplanted several of these out here (which are doing well and have bloomed this year) but then found quite a few communities of trilliums. I believe this is perhaps a Sweet Betsy trillium (Trillium cuneatum).
This plant was hard for me to identify. It grows in the woods alongside a hill. Do you all recognize it? It is chickweed! Star chickweed (Stellaria pubera) is a native chickweed and NOT that pesky common chickweed found growing in lawns all across America in the winter. This chickweed has a very large and pronounced flower. My wildflower book, Wildflowers of Tennessee the Ohio Valle and the Southern Appalacians says common chickweed is a delicacy in Europe and "is a source of vitamins A and C". My chickens love the common chickweed but I am not going to be pulling the star chickweed to see if they like it too. This lovely diminutive wildflower grows right along with Spring Beauty and other wildflowers in the shaded areas of the farm.
This is the easiest wildflower to identify for me. It is Wild Bee Balm or Wild Bergamot (Monarda fistulosa). It grows wild in most areas of Middle Tennessee judging by all I see in the summer when it blooms. Here it grows on Wildflower Hill. It is quite happy on Wildflower Hill because Mr. Fix-it and I bush hog the hill and cleared the saplings which enabled more sun to reach the ground. Wild Bergamot blooms with Rose Gentian in the summer and is a gorgeous combination. My new hives of honeybees will love it!
Wild phlox (Phlox divaricataI) blooms all over Wildflower Hill and also in the woods.
This sweet little wildflower is Jacob's Ladder (Polemonium reptans) and blooms in the woods and on the edges of the woods. I was planning to move some out here but no longer since it is already here and growing well. It is right next to some beggar ticks (Bidens) which grow with abandon out here. No late summer walk in the woods is complete without a bunch of beggar ticks sticking to your clothes.
I believe this to be a native Maidenhair fern (Adiantum pedatum). It was a lucky catch for me because I was deep in a gorge with a wet spring when I happened upon it.
This mystery plant was also in the gorge next to the wet spring. I have no idea what it might be but I am leaning towards a wood lily. Does anyone know?
Fiddleheads also grow in the wet area of the gorge.
Coming up the hill the forest floor is absolutely covered with American Columbo. Wowser! This wildflower is stunning in person. I recently had some visitors and one of them asked me right away what it was and she liked it a lot. It is not a real common wildflower in my experience so Mr. Fix-it and I simply adore it on our land.
The rest of the week will see more wildflowers and some bees....
in the garden.....
Words and Photos Property of In the Garden Blog Team, In the Garden
It has been nearly two years since we bought our property in the country. We had a two year plan. The first year was to bring the property up to standard by clearing the land where it should be cleared, by cleaning up the trash dumped on the property (eight dump trucks worth!), and by landscaping and getting ready to build the new house. The second year entailed improvements and building the house. That process is pretty much all done. Landscaping is still ongoing but the bones are in place and now all we need is to let Mother Nature do her work. I thought I'd take the opportunity to show some before and after pictures to help you through the process. It is a very long and arduous process taking an unimproved/vacant/overgrown/fallow piece of property and 'improving' it for Mr. Fix-it and I. I say improving it for humans because perhaps the wildlife and some humans liked it the way it was but we did not.
Our field is in the woods off from a gravel road. The field (I use the
term lightly since it was so overgrown) was a mess. Just look at the
first picture. It took us buying a tractor and working many long hours in all sorts of weather and conditions to clear the land. Even after the land was cleared I spent many an hour spraying trees that kept growing back in the field, mowing the grass and those same trees (mainly sassafras, elms, locust, and hickories), as well as liming the grass areas and seeding about 300 pounds of fescue as well as millions of wildflower seeds. The lawn areas are still not finished because the building process destroyed all grass that was located around the house and the weather has not been conducive to getting a good stand of grass growing. That should be remedied with the onset of warmer weather.
This stand of cedars is a key part of our design. We wanted a little cedar grove for privacy and for the wildlife. While there are lots of deciduous trees behind the cedars we simply love this little grove. The house is quite close to it as you can see from the below picture. What a difference!
You can also see what I mean about no grass. We simply have mud. It is a problem. While we (the humans) can and do take off our shoes prior to entering the house, the dogs do not. They bring in a lot of mud with them. What a mess.
This is the northern side of the field looking west. We cleared the area, mowed, and thinned out some of the trees leading down to our pond.
The same area now. The lawn is leveled, trees and gardens are planted, the start of the large vegetable garden is in place, and someday a small patio and other improvements will join the area.
This was the view from the front of the house to be looking west down the field.
This is the same view today. It will change once the grass finally grows in. Not having grass has been quite the bane. Mud, and erosion is a problem when we have rain; which we often do in the winter. Just past the vegetable garden in the distance is the orchard with its chicken coop. This area does have grass because it was not disturbed during the build process.
This part of the 700 foot long driveway looking from the road toward the field. While there was a semblance of a road there, it was mainly a dirt path.
Now it is improved. We excavated several inches and removed the topsoil, laid a geotextile fabric down, then trucked in ten trucks of varying sized gravel ranging from large, medium, and crush and run. The driveway is as solid as an asphalt road and very easy to drive and walk on. We do have to occasionally grade it but eventually it will settle out nicely. The great news is we can easily get to the house without getting stuck or dragging mud.
The driveway again looking west from the field. The rusty bucket is a memento leftover from the dumping. To the left was an old couch someone was too lazy to dispose of properly, or perhaps people used to come up here and hang out on it. Judging by the thousands of beer bottles we picked up that is most likely too.
Here is it mostly cleaned up. The teeter totter thing on the left needs to be disposed of and was left over from all the trash.
Speaking of trash, in addition to dumping inside of the property gate (which my neighbor installed after the owner of the property realized other locals were dumping on his land) dumping took place across from the gate once the gate was installed. This is a public road not well traveled but traveled enough that three full dump trucks of trash including household trash as well as some mattresses, toliets, and other unmentionables accumulated here--even after we purchased the property. I have proof of that. The berms were all trash the county graded up into the area. Fortunately, the county did help with some of the clean up and took out one dump truck full. I think the workers were quite stunned at the amount of trash here but some locals seem to think it is normal. Really?
The area now fairly cleaned. There still remains a lot of handpicking of trash because the backhoe simply could not get it all. But wow, what a difference and my o my how our view has changed when we exit our driveway. So far as we can tell the dumping has stopped. Littering continues but we try to deal with that and are hopeful that neighbors will take note and try to help with policing the area because after all, we all live or drive here and have to look at it and isn't it nice to look at the native flora and fauna and not someone's trash? I think so anyhow....
in the garden....still working.
Words and Photos Property of In the Garden Blog Team, In the Garden
