my before and after

It is too quiet here! I thought I'd put up a before and after on my backyard. I got inspired by a friend and neighbor who has a lovely native shade garden. I told her I envied her as all I had was heavy, old, nasty ivy - knee deep and climbing up the trees. It seemed all I could do just to keep it OFF the trees. She told me her yard HAD looked just like mine... The secret is in the 'cut and pull, cut and pull, cut and pull'.

I have only done about half the back and will try to get the other half done this winter as temperature allows. Winter is much better for pulling ivy. It is hard work for this 'little, old lady' but wow! the results are wonderful.

This whole area was planted in spring 2006. Some of the plants came from my front garden, some bought. some gifts!

Sterling

another after

Looking good. Ivy can definitely get out of control. We planted it at our last house and then several years later, we cut and pulled it out as well along with sensitive fern (which I like but it can grow pretty fast too). Wild grape vines can be just as bad if not worse.

Sterling, you are going to be MY inspiration!
I have two halves to my backyard. Both have needed quite a lot of clearning, and could use some more to get rid of invasive species. Mostly monkey grass, and that horrible japanese river grass type stuff. A few more small invasive trees need to be removed as well.
Both halves need drainage correction and major grading/errosion control (I'd like to do some terracing).
Then I can plant!!
I've already got a bit of a "shrubbery" going in the back of one half. Mostly native plants. The other half will be only native plants.
Your garden is beautiful, a great inspiration!

GGG

Thanks - this has been work but before I saw my friend's garden, I didn't really believe ivy could be removed! I have learned that pulling up ivy, weeds, monkey grass, small trees, etc is easier in the winter as the ground is not so hard. I still have a ways to go...

Great work! But...how many tons of mulch did you have to put down back there??? I hope you bought by the truckload rather than bags - I wouldn't be able to afford to eat if I did all that...LOL!

I can't remember what's on the ground at the new place, I was too busy checking the exterior of the house and under the porch for termites or anything. I get to go back this weekend, so I'll try to focus more on the ground...haha!

~Sunny

I wish I could get it by the truckload! I don't have anywhere to store a truckload of it - my driveway is steep and my entire backyard is surrounded by a chain link fence with gates. No way for a truck to get back there. So I do buy it by the bag (8 at a time) and I use it as I plant. But the soil in the wooded area is good from all the years of decomposition - not as much mulch is needed. Not like the heavy red clay everywhere else. That is really hard work! At least the bark is not as heavy as the Nature's Helper, the river sand or the bags of composted manure I have to work into red clay!!!

I bought a gizmo called a Leaf Muncher and it finely chops the leaves and pine needles which I then dig into the dirt, so that makes it even better. Plus I use that as mulch also. My biggest temptation is in buying plants! But I do have some property out in SW DeKalb that my Dad left me and I've been digging a wide variety of ferns, hearts-a-busting, tea berry, white horsemint, cranefly orchids and trilliums plus a lot of 'unknowns'.

Now I need to get phase 2 rid of the ivy! It really IS hard work but walking through my 'woods' in the morning with the sunlight shafting through the trees and seeing the wonderful beauty makes it worth all the sweat...

You should be able to get a load of mulch delivered but it might cost you $50 or more to have it delivered. In that case get a large load of it, that is if you want that much delivered at one time.

I buy it in bags at times, or get a pickup load which does save quite a bit of money. For example I bought 15 bags of cypress mulch at HD for $2 a bag Saturday and it barely filled the back half of my pickup. I can go get the whole bed of the pickup filled from the county landfill for the same price.

Sometimes that isn't enough. A lot of stone centers carry mulch, top soil, fill dirt, and other material that is bought by the cubic yard (or less), but I've never priced their products other than stone. I will get a dump truck load of it probably in early spring.

The other way to get free mulch is if you ever have some trees taken down. Have the tree service leave the chipped up wood. This kind of mulch can have a lot of bigger chunks in it, but it is free (well sort of, but if you don't tell them you want the chips, they will take it with them). We had 16 trees taken down this summer and the pile of mulch left took over two weeks to spread by doing a couple hours of work each day but it does eventually disappear.

The chip pile was over 8 foot tall and probably 10 foot across. The grandkids enjoyed it briefly for "king of the hill".

Looks great! Your hard work is showing. Love the big blue hosta (hostas are my passion) along with most other plants LOL.

Brenda

Well you proved me wrong,and thank you for it.I had hard enough head to believe, that if ivy grew there 50 Yrs. ago, I would show you where you could find ivy.Best to you in this endevor of beautification,and hope you can inspire others to follow aft.I had a very ugly problem when we bought this property with a deep ugly gulley on either side of a baren acher lot,witch gave us the option to get 2 achers at less than the price of the other achers around us,and little by little I let mother nature fill in both sides, and I wish I had taken a "before",but that was 25 Yrs ago.The after will come after "this Little old man" retires in March. Mike

hcmcdole! that is a beautiful pile - I just don't have anywhere in front for them to dump it - driveway too steep - can't dump on the lawn - and no vehicle can get to my backyard... I would love to have a pile like that! Maybe with a bit of head scratching, I could figure out a way...

Mike - I figured same as you - if one had ivy then it is there forever! My ivy has been here since 1969 that I know of... but after all the pull and cut, down to the dirt, I only see a little "knuckle" of it pop up in a few places and I pull that right away. I got a mp3 player and the pull and cut seems more fun with it. I boogie along with Moody Blues and John Fogerty and it is a real helper! You have a lot of property there. Take some before pix now...

I'll never get completely free of it as it it in my neighbors' yards but I weedeater a neat line of it inside my chain link fence every few months and that much looks pretty.

I know what you mean sterhill. You do have to move the stuff fairly quick if you place it on grass or the driveway. I just had some landscaping done (35 tons of stone) and the 3 guys that did it had it done in 3 weeks and that was part-time (4 to 6 hours five days a week). The 9 tons of gravel was dumped on a tarp on our front yard and it was moved in less than a week so no harm was done to the grass. The other 25+ tons was stone on pallets and I didn't care about our side yard since it needs serious work.

Anyway that is my plan now is to have a tarp placed on the front yard and a dump truck of mulch dumped on the tarp. I bought a garden cart (bicycle tires, 14 cf which is 1/2 cubic yard) at Northern Tools and you can move a lot in a short time. It takes more time to load it up than dump it and rake it. Get a grain hog shovel for loading though - it is a lot bigger than a normal digging shovel. Another method is to use a smaller tarp and drag the material - we do it all the time with leaves which is great compost material.

I envy you the crane fly orchids. They have such lovely, subtle leaves. I found them growing in the woods around Auburn when I was a student there.

Beth

Just Lovely :)

Okay Sterling.. where do I get a leaf Muncher and how much are they?? How big is it??

Susan

soulgardenlove -
Leaf muncher: I bought mine at amazon.com for $129 with free delivery. It won't take pine cones or sticks - sweet gum balls fall right through. It takes two people to put it together and if you read the reviews at amazon, you'll find a lot of people hate it. I love mine. I wish it was faster but it grinds up the leaves and pine needles to coarse, medium or fine and if you pile the grindings up, it composts very fast. With all our red clay, this is wonderful stuff. Go to amazon and put in Flowtron LE900 as your search words. I just looked it up and it is now $118. I took the free shipping and it was here in 3 days! You want to pour the leaves in the top and not stuff them in. If you stuff it, it will jam. I use my shooter's earmuffs as it is loud. But it does the job...

Turtle_35206 -
I have some extras if you have a good place for them - they are really reproducing in my yard! I posted some pix http://davesgarden.com/pf/showimage/120714/