Irises: Striving for a MidWestern version of Doss' Eden, 0 by Equilibrium

Equilibrium wrote:
I tackled this project because I was too stupid to run for the hills when I could have. Seriously, I had no idea how much was here and how hard the work would be. I can guarantee that if I knew what the costs were associated with cleaning up that I most assuredly would have put my foot down and said, "We're outa here". This property would have been listed and we would have moved on.

Rhamnus frangula or rather Glossy Buckthorn is definitely more of a shrub and it generally is in the 12'-15' range. I had at least a hundred of those and they were concentrated over to the north by the wetlands. The R. cathartica or Common Buckthorn is classified as a small tree in that it generally is in the 25' range rarely growing taller than 30'. The R. cathartica is most unfortunately what we had the vast majority of which is a real bummer as it often assumes a multi stem formation which is a son of a gun to take down. Both set seed well- too well. Bad news for you, buckthorn is in your neck of the woods too. Bad news for me is that I have two of those wisterias you were teasing me about and will need to deal with those sooner or later. Pssst, I can tell your daughter how to take care of that Poplar tree she has. We girdle trees all the time because it is too darn expensive to take them down. That should stop the evil runners the poor thing is dealing with. If she gets her hands on the right chemical, it theoretically should translocate into the runners from the cambium layer down and over and she might nail a few of those as a bonus. Good news is that the tree would be a great scag for birds and would come down naturally and provide much needed biomass for the soil.

Tee he he, my husband is a sweetheart but wasn't being sweet about not mentioning the AC units, husband knows when to be shush and when not to be. I started planting in that area based on his comments. I never thought of a hip wall with a gate so I went with what seemed the path of least resistance which was the hostas. The birdbath was an after thought in that it went on sale the end of the season for $50. I figured what the heck and tossed it between the two ac units. I liked that mock barley twist to it.

Honeysuckle (%$&*#), I'll have to pass on that alleopathic monster. Actually Buckthorn is considerably more alleopathic than Honeysuckle. Both have chemicals that kill off other species. My property is a classic example of how they can dominate an understory blocking out sun to the ground and sending out their nasty chemicals which further prohibits regeneration of other species. This is why I have only old growth oaks and hickories here, nothing under 50 years of age.

The total of buckthorn and honeysuckle removed from the property is at right around 3,700 to date. I'm thinking there's at least that much left but much smaller plants for the most part now as we hit the bigguns first and we hit em hard. Maybe 50 twenty five footers left but no more than 100 so this is a good thing. And that pile of limbs in the vegetable garden was a small pile of upper fruiting branches and one of probably about 50 such piles that we torched. Fortunately, the males in my family are closet pyros and burning is the hi-light of their lives. They all hang around with glazed looks and marvel at the flames and kids run around super charged tossing anything that isn't nailed down onto the pile. Male neighbors are attracted to the blaze (like bugs to a zapper) and flock over to admire the bonfire and they all stand around and bond. It's a guy thing I am told.

I talked to my girlfriend tonight and she has a scanner so if I draw out the basics, she said she'd draw in the rest for me and post something for you to get an idea. She's better at drawing than me and she is very familiar with this property and would know where the fruit trees are as well as the "secret shade garden" as well as the AC units and such so I'll dump this baby on her to give you a good idea of what we've got and then you can see where my "pockets" are. I desperately need design ideas as there is no way I could afford a landscape achitect/designer right about now.

Yup, native plants are the way to go. That well situation with no water was the pits and we can't afford to take another hit like that anytime soon.

I think we can terrace down. Our lot was the highest elevation of all back here with the wetlands all draining away from our property. We then backfilled and increased the actual elevation for the home by another 4' so we should have no problems. Even with record flooding last spring our home was high and dry. The area I was thinking about doing this tiering/terracing in is already a mud slop hole so no worry mate! I can send you a photo of that next spring and you'll surely see anything would be an improvement over what is there now. This I do not understand, "You might want to have a wide garden path wind around a corner that you have bermed up behind a small terrace. You can back it up with some smaller evergreens in different sizes and colors so it looks like it belongs there." I like the way it sounds but I can't picture it in my head. Here's where I lose it. No picture and I can't sort out what you are saying in my head.

Bonemeal = varmit magnet
Yes, you are correct which is why I'd like to find something better. I'll go look at what Margie used.

Here's a little problem I discovered here last year. We call it gypsy moth. I plan on scraping as many egg cases as I can find from bark and dabbing with a chemical but my girlfriend thinks I should take a rubber mallett to the egg case. I do need to set some traps. Either way, I need to kill them so they don't kill my trees.

Am I having fun yet? Is this gypsy moth deal an adventure or what! Oh, this is what I mean by you gotta just laugh sometimes!

http://www.fs.fed.us/ne/morgantown/4557/gmoth/








This message was edited Aug 29, 2006 11:29 PM