Rewilding My Lot

I’ve plotted out pathways for the back garden, although nothing will be permanently installed, so things could be changed later.

The first step was to lay down cardboard weighted down with stones to mark the routes.

Then I had to pause this project when we got heavy rain that left the ground very wet for a few days, followed by a couple of days of strong wind.

By the time I could step into the garden again without getting massive clumps of mud on my shoes, all of the cardboard had been blown out of place. So I had to collect it all and reassemble the pathways.

The next stage was to make multiple trips to get free wood chip mulch (thank you, City of Seguin) to lay on top of the pathways. Because the mulch is free, I am able to be generous in how much I put down. It took me several days and quite a bit of heavy lifting to transport enough mulch home to complete the pathways. Here’s a photo of the giant city mulch pile.

First I placed enough mulch to hold the cardboard down better than the stones could. The big green bag is one of four that I’m using to pack the mulch for transport. I can only fill it about half full and still lift it into the car, so that’s what creates the limit of what I can carry in one car load.

Then I kept adding mulch until all the carboard was covered to a depth of at least a couple of inches. Now I have mulch pathways that go from front to back and side to side, and a couple of extra spurs to places I’ll visit often like the compost tumbler and rain gauge (not installed yet). The native grass perimeter can also be walked on. Over time the mulch will break down, but I can always add more as needed. It will also probably never look this neat again, once there has been traffic, wind, and rain!

Here are some final photos.