Progress Update October 2022

We are in the chips!!!!

For over a decade, it seemed that for one reason or another (mostly deer), we were thwarted in moving forward with our woodland garden project.  Since the tree fall of November last year, (which we initially thought a disaster but now see the blessings), circumstances have led us to believe that we are now in God's timing for working on the garden in earnest!  Kimmy and I are very grateful and having a blast!  

This past growing season we had marvelous success dividing and transplanting hundreds of hosta, the vast majority of the plants we purchased are doing great, a well timed rainy season and now, lots and lots of wood chips!

I never would have thought it possible that we would be able to mulch roughly an acre.  This is some serious work (my watch tells me I had 900 active minutes last week), but Kimmy and I find it joyful.  It turns out arborists are happy to bring you their wood chips for free, since it saves them time, fuel costs and disposal costs.  Wood chips are awesome mulch, great for plants and we love the smell of the various trees from which it came, including cedar, pine, oak, maple, etc.  

We never know when the next load might be coming, as we only receive chips when Pete's tree or Brittian tree happen to be working in the area, so we are doing our best to spread the mulch as soon after we receive it as we can.  Amazingly, we are approximately half way though mulching our entire garden area!  

With the growing season winding down, aside from continuing to spread wood chips, there may not be a huge amount to report until spring, but we will keep you posted!  Until next time....

Fences and Tree Disaster

To thwart the deer, hopefully once and for all, we had an aluminum fence professionally installed on 11/22/21.  The fence encompasses all of our back yards, down into the woods.  Once into the woods, we are still using the 4X4 posts, galvanized garden fence and deer fencing, which is much cheaper, and more easily repaired when the inevitable tree falls.

Then, just four days later, on 11/26/21, the day after Thanksgiving, a powerful wind started a domino effect.

The poplar tree closest, which is not even on our property, toppled three more and caused two more to lean badly.  Fortunately, other than our homebrew fence in back, our new fence was spared any impact.

We contacted Tarry with Timberline tree company, who after inspecting our trees and a mishap during removal causing yet another tree to fall and a power surge to our good neighbors, wound up removing about a dozen trees!

Our plans for the right half of our woodland garden suddenly have been revised for many more sun loving plants!

Seriously, this unexpected metamorphosis of our back woods rocked our world for a while.  We've had to rethink and revise, but we believe God has plans in this space for us and a slowly but surely, a new vision is emerging.

While my back may argue this next point, one good thing that came out of our tree disaster is wood chips.  LOTS and LOTS of woodchips!!!  We have been using them to create garden paths, which is really helping to visualize what we want to do.

June 10, 2014 Update

We've made some progress on our woodland garden project.  Here are a few of the highlights:

-  We had a tree company come in and take down the poplar that was leaning against another poplar last fall.  In the process, they had to take out another tree as well.  We had planned for a bit more shade in that location, but we can always use the sun!

-  We found rhododendrons for $6.88 and azaleas for $2.88 at Lowes.  Not being able to pass up those prices, we bought about $200 worth of plants!

-  Last fall, I took out some hosta by the road in our front garden and just threw them back in the woods.

They survived the winter, so we were able to start quite a few hosta in the woodland garden this spring.

-  I took about 40 acuba cuttings and planted them along the edge of Chris and Sammy's portion.

-  We got tired of the deer coming in and marauding our plants, so we put a chicken wire fence.  It is temporary in nature and easily moved, but hopefully it will last long enough for our plants to get established.  Here are a few pictures:

 That's me, checking the perimeter.

We fenced in both our woods as well as Chris and Sammy's pie shaped adjoining piece.  We've just started clearing the underbrush in their piece, but as these pictures show, we have a way to go:

And finally, here are a few shots of our plantings, just getting started:

 We've got a long way to go, but a big part of the initial labor is done.  Now it's just a matter of growing plants!