Backyard Progress In Pictures

Some stuff:

Most of the backyard, as seen from the west side behind the Mulberry tree

Morning Glory seedlings, yay!  I don't remember if they're blue or purple.

I love Yarrow, as long as it isn't the Yarrow taking over the front garden. 

Another view of the whole (mostly) yard from the other side of the tree, from the SW corner. I stood in dog shit to take this. 

The Mexican Orchid Tree, with a pair of little lavenders flanking it. 

The Chaste Tree, with a wee columbine in front of it, Yarrow and compost bin behind. 

The first flowers on my Citronella geranium, potted, on the back porch. 

Cosmos and Cypress Vine seedlings! Squee! 

new leaves on the Chaste Tree (Vitex agnus castus)

One of the wee lavenders near the Orchid Tree (Lavandula dentata)

More soon.

Legal Weed

Look who's still alive!  Lots of LIFE happening lately, and also lots of SUMMER, so, not much going on in the yard/gardens. A quick recap of the last couple of months goes:

• learned to tune up/repair my lawnmower via YouTube videos
• Something (not one of my dogs) dug up my Sweet Autumn Clematis vine and the whole thing died
• Discovered that the weed in the back yard that I knew was bothering my dogs' skin is none other than Ragweed.  *HORROR MOVIE MUSIC PLAYS IN BACKGROUND* 
• The grass, weeds, and intentional plants that I tend are doing really well this year, since we've had a decent amount of consistent rainfall this year, and my "lawns" are doing great.  The front is...alive!  The back is 6" high at all times, fluffy, soft, and 90% weeds.  I don't care, as long as it's green. Except for the ragweed. 

So the other day while mowing (with the weed eater, since although my lawnmower is now functional, it's out of gas, derp), I came across a weed I have never seen before in my ten years of living in this house, and my thirty-three years of living in Austin.  I took to the internet today to try and identify it, and ended up drawing you a picture: 

1. Ground Ivy (Glechoma)     

    

Low, creeping, prolific, and covered in small whorled burrs that blanket your dog like little angry traps that spring when you snuggle him later.  I've found them to be easily controlled by scalping the crap out of them with the weedeater on a regular basis. (As per this whole post: your mileage may vary). 

...the plant, not the dogs. Weed eaters don't control dogs at  all. 

2. Dichondra

Teensy and beautiful, to my eye. They spring up and proliferate in shady areas with moist soil, and I let them do that all they want, because they fill in areas where I can never grow anything else. Plus they're cute as hell. 

3. Creeping Buttercup (Ranunculus)

   

The first time I saw this I thought it was some new horrible form of Ground Ivy.  I don't have much; the healthier and more diverse my lawn is, the less I see Creeping Buttercup.  It's itchy.

4. Wood Sorrel (Oxalis)

   

NOT CLOVER.  Clover is this.  There are many species of Oxalis, but this one is mine.  This shit is the reason the HOA hates me. It's ubiquitous, fast-growing, covered in @$!%&!~@! stickers, and too low to hit with the lawnmower.  Regular scalping with the weed eater keeps it in check, but the second the grass withers in extreme heat this stuff takes off like crazy.  WE HATES IT, PRECIOUS.

5. Henbit (Lamium)

   

Henbit is a type of Dead Nettle - "dead" indicating that it has no noxious chemical sting like Stinging Nettle or Bull Nettle.  It's safe to touch.  And I think it's pretty, when it's not stringy and overgrown.  This is one of the weeds I let grow in shady areas if it wants to, though it usually doesn't, for long.

   

 6. Lamb's Quarters (Chenopodium)

   

Big, strong, and easy to pull up when it's about a foot high.  Earlier than that and the stem just snaps at the ground.  Later than that and you need farm equipment to get it up. Fortunately it doesn't seem to spread much, at least not in my yard. It's also got big, strong roots that are perfect for breaking up hard, dry soil - which is why you tend to see it more in barren areas.  It's got a job to do. 

    

7. Western Ragweed (Ambrosia)

   

Holy shitsnacks, y'all.  I first became aware that my dogs seemed to be allergic to this stuff last year, when I had maybe one or two of them in the yard.  I pulled them up. This year, I got dozens, so I mowed them over - regular mowing will disrupt and eventually wear out and kill 99% of the weeds I've encountered. Not this crap. It replicates exponentially the more I cut it down, and now I have a fucking CARPET of this shit.  More extreme measure to be taken over the coming weekend.  Daisy's reacting to it (and the fleas, which have gone INSANE this year) so badly I'm afraid the Animal Services people are going to confiscate her any day now, the poor love. :'(

8. Japanese Stiltgrass, or Annual Jewgrass (Microstegium)

  

I was highly dismayed to discover that this was a particularly noxious invasive plant, high on watch lists around my area.  I love this stuff!  I have it all over the east side of my property where nothing else will grow, and it's beginning to take over my backyard, too.  And I was GLAD it was, because it's SO pretty and green and soft.  I learned today that it'll get up to 3' high if I let it - I've always mown it into a soft, plush carpet, and it stays that way.  I want to keep it, but...? 

9.   ?????

SO WHAT THE HELL IS THIS THING???

Anybody?

It was about a foot and a half high at time of death (by weed eater). Each little star-shaped cluster of leaves had a little cluster of tiny, tiny yellow flowers in the center.  There was a pale area near the center of each cluster, kinda like in the picture.  It was really pretty, and also really scary-looking, because, is it a Magical Winning Lottery Ticket Bush, or is it SATAN???

[Edit:  it's wild Amaranth!] 




And Now A Word From My Lawn's Sponsor 
(that would be me)...

By and large, I let weeds be weeds.  As long as they're not hurting anybody, not toxic to my dogs, and not taking over and growing out of control.  Like I said, regular mowing keeps the ones I don't want to have around down, and it does actually proliferate things I do want more of - like the Japanese Stiltgrass (mournful sigh) and the variety of small, native grass-like things that are together finally replacing my nasty-ass Bermuda Grass (planted by the builders in 2004, ugly as hell, terrible at this climate, and yet another plant my dogs and I are allergic to).

The main reason I let most of them alone is that MONOCULTURE IS UNHEALTHY.   A typical "ideal" suburban lawn, a smooth, green, swath of a single type of grass, is a monoculture.  Maintained year by year lawns deplete the soil beneath them of all the nutrients they need to survive, leaving behind the rest to build up and slowly deaden the soil underneath, requiring massive amounts of chemical intervention to keep them going (hint: this is why they rotate crops).  For healthy soil, and healthy plants and grasses, you need a diverse range of plants in any garden scape, be it a lawn or a garden bed.  I'd much rather have a sea of Whatever Will Grow in which every plant is healthy, green, and plush.  A diverse lawn, with its varying water and nutrient needs and its varying root depth, promotes healthy, nutrient-rich, well-aerated soil chock full of beneficial bacteria and insects.   It also holds moisture better, retains soil and prevents erosion, and breakdown of used plant material feeds neighboring plants and trees.

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Here We Go Again, V 2.1 - A Radical New @#%& Idea

Okay, so, maybe it's not so radical to YOU, Dear Reader, but it's new to me.  Not the concept itself, but the idea of embracing and implementing it myself.

The Thing Is: 

• my @#%& [back] lawn dies every year about midsummer, if not before. 
• my @#%& lawn is like 95% weeds and grassy weeds.  I'm fine with that, but one of my dogs is *horribly* allergic to grass, as it turns out. 
• over half of my @#%& lawn is also covered with plants that make stickers, this year. WTF. 
• She's also *horribly* allergic to fleas, which flourish in my @#%& lawn, between the humidity, the weeds, and the neighbor's dog and @#%& lawn, neither of which are taken care of.
• By some twist of Fate, I am not ever allowed to have a lawnmower that works.  If I have one, it breaks after only a month or two.  For the most part, for the past ten years, I've "mown" my @#%& lawn with a frikking weedeater.  Which is great for upper body strength, but it's a @#%& pain in the ass. 
• I once saw my friend, musician Alyse Black, perform at a house concert in a woman's backyard, which was enormous and beautifully landscaped to accommodate audiences at the house concerts she hosted regularly.  And it's had me thinking, ever since that day. 

I'm thinking I might just say to hell with my @#%& lawn and implement a lawn-free landscape in my backyard.  What little grass I have left, between the moisture-sucking and carrotlike surface roots of my mulberry tree (which are actually pretty neat)  and the shade it casts over most of the yard (hallelujah, finally some shade!), as well as the fact that the rest of the yard is literally in FULL sun from sunup to sundown 365 days a year...well, it's basically crabgrass and whatever native weedy grasses are willing to grow in those conditions.  On one hand, that's great, because what I was given when my house was built was Bermuda Grass, to which I am allergic; but OTOH, as I said, my dogs are allergic to the "grass" I have now and to the bugses it harbours.  

So I'm Thinking...

Maxipark Piet Oudolf (via Pinterest) 

Pinterest

GardenCollection.com, via Pinterest
I *adore* circular paved areas like this. 

My old patio garden, before the grass grew in between the
stones.  I've been dismantling it for the past year, because
it was settling so badly that it was a trip hazard. 

Large, sweeping areas of mulched beds. 

And, aside from the plants themselves (would it be wrong of me to host a party and charge an admission price of one garden plant per guest?  Heehee), I could re-landscape my entire backyard for absolutely free, if I wanted to.

Things That Are Free: 

• pallets
• rocks
• mulch 
• manual labor
• newspapers
• compost (I make my own)
• compost food (from neighbors, who may even pay me to rake their lawns and cart off the detritus?)
• my Quickrete Walkmaker, which I used to make my old patio, and still have hanging on the wall in my garage. 
• a pair of 6' black metal trellises, which used to live on the open end of my porch 
• a black iron trellis (used to be a headboard), that has recently become available, because one of my asshole dogs dug up the Sweet Autumn Clematis that was on it, completely killing the plant.  >:[ 

Even Some of the Plants: 

• wildflowers (hand-collected seed, where allowed by law)
• transplants and divisions from other parts of my property (I'm up to HERE with Yarrow, garlic chives, Irises, and Amarcrinums) 

Things To Consider: 

If I decide to develop this, implementation will be a long ways off.  Unless I get really excited about it and start collecting free things on a regular basis.  I've been bringing home a short stack of pallets every week lately, for a patio/deck project I'm going to start working on soon (aaaany minute now, I swear).  

A Few of the Things I Want To Keep In Mind: 

• Dogs eat wood. 
• Gravel and/or rocks/rock chips are sharp on dog toes, and potentially REALLY hot in the summer sun.  From my own past experience, I also know that rocks migrate when you're not looking, no matter how hard you try to contain them. 
• Weed supression is the first step, no matter what I end up doing. 
• Erosion control is essential to the plan, in my sloping yard. 
• I want vegetables integrated into the entire landscape, not just in a devoted plot (although there would be a dedicated vegetable section). 
• More privacy options, plz? 
• Dog-safe plants

I'll let you know how the @#%& plan develops. 

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Two Things

1.   A dear friend graciously loaned me her lawnmower for a while, and so:

(this week)

(last week)

2.   I bought a couple of cans of Rustoleum's "Brilliant Blue" spray paint to use on some small fencing panels, trellises, chairs - whatever I end up feeling like blue-en-ing.  It's going to look cool.

It's a start. 

It's not exactly Le Jardin Majorelle, but the blue accents are going to look cool once I get a bunch of things spray painted and into place.  It doesn't look like it in the picture, but the blue is actually the same color as you see here: 

Things That Need To Be Trimmed

These Clematis vines (Sweet Autumn on the fence, Romantika on the pole)

This dog. 

DAT GRASS OMG. 

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Evolution of An Herb Garden

One of the things I'll be doing this coming Spring is re-vamping what used to be my herb garden.  Into...not one.  I haven't yet decided what I'll do for an herb garden next, to be honest; but I know the space it was in before is shabby and overgrown and defunct. Part of the process of spiffing up the lawn includes returning to lawn to that space.

But first...

This was the first herb garden I built in my "new" house in 2004.  It doesn't look like much - this pic was taken in 2007 as I was demo-ing the whole thing to make way for the new patio project.  Plants are gone, pots all over the place, soaker hoses all wonky.

But before this, it was a pretty little semi-circle of fragrant forest to sit behind on a cool day on the back porch.

The patio project was a 152sf Quikrete Walkmaker project - not only was the slab surface covered with cement "cobblestones", but also a 9x12' area on the ground in front of it, to make one large surface.

The dip in the center is where two photos were spliced together, sorry. :)  An 18" border wrapped around the entire thing, and this is where I planted my herbs:

Summer, 2007.   Little did I know at the time that it was going to rain every single day from February through mid-August.  Those orange Cosmos in the back corner (hiding a compost bin) got to nearly twelve feet tall!

You can see here, it wasn't long before weeds starting breaking through the mortar.  I'd mixed my mortar with sand by half, like you're supposed to...not realizing that the mortar mix I bought was already sanded. Oops.

In 2009 I took up all the stones, chipped the mortar off of them entirely, and replaced them in a different pattern - concentric circles which I hoped looked like ripples in a pond.  I also created that wee round garden with the Buddha statue in it as an island in the patio surface.

A year later, the Martian Death Fungus hit; and the year after that, that soul-sucking damned drought.  My fluffy little fence of herbs around a pretty patio was no more.

This is what it looked like as of Fall 2012.  A single white Yarrow survived both the MDF and the drought.  The lawn doesn't look like much in this shot, but trust me, this is greatly improved over the previous year, and a pretty good-looking lawn for a woman who has three mid-sized dogs as well, I think.







So what's next for this space?  More lawn.  Sounds boring, I know, but I have a plan.  It involves moving a LOT of cobblestones.  Kill me now.


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