mulch
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A Gift For The Garden (And My Hands)
The “green mulch” approach of growing annual plants to fill my space this year means that I am generating quite a bit of biomass when it comes time to cut those plants down. In the short term, I have been able to lay cut stems on the ground as pathways but I will eventually run Continue reading
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More Clearing, For An Important Project!
The biggest project that I am embarking on this year is installation of an ecosystem pond. This will be a water source available to everything from birds down to the tiniest of wildlife visitors, and I hope it will be an attractive feature for humans to watch as well. The first of many steps is Continue reading
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Short-Term Effects Of The Freeze
In the past week we have had five nights of below freezing temperatures, with the lowest recorded here of 16.0 F. I expected to see some wilting, blackness, or loss of leaves and we certainly had that. With native plants, that is almost never a concern, and it’s just a part of nature cleaning up. Continue reading
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Preparing For A Freeze
Technically, the first frost of this winter season was early morning 12/11/2023. I didn’t have a thermometer here then, but I think the lowest temperature was maybe 30-32 degrees F. There was no precipitation overnight, just a light coating of frozen condensation. The plants here showed no noticeable reaction to that light frost. However, a Continue reading
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Settling The Garden For The Winter
One of my goals for this fall was to have every area here covered with plants, soil containing seeds, or mulch, so that there is a minimum area of bare soil that could be vulnerable to erosion (obviously I am hoping that my seeds will germinate!). Most of those activities have been achieved by now, Continue reading
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An Ongoing Fall/Winter Task
When I first set up the cardboard & mulch pathways, the first covering of mulch was about two inches deep. That was enough to get started, but I knew that there would need to be more, not only to make the pathways thicker, but also on an ongoing basis to make up for compaction and Continue reading
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Building Pathways
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 Continue reading
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Improving Erosion Control?
Since I moved here in February, there have been two significant water events when rain fell hard enough to move soil around. The second event last month allowed me to deduce more precisely how water moves across this property. In short, looking out into the back yard from the house, heavy rainfall moves from back Continue reading
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Things I Learned After Heavy Rain
Some basic things about this lot that I cannot change: These next photos are of the left and right boundaries to our lot. Things that I saw after we had a day of heavy rain following weeks of drought (i.e., the ground was dry and hard): Future things that I can consider doing: Continue reading
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Giving The Live Oak Trees More Space
In general, I use the estimation that the critical part of a tree’s root system corresponds to the area defined by its drip line (the outer circumference of its branches). If I can, when a tree is situated within a lawn, I like to define a mulched non-turf circle that extends at least to the Continue reading
About Me
Nature Lover.
Inquisitive Observer.
Student Gardener.
I invite you to join me on my journey to convert my sterile (from a nature point of view) new house lot to a healthy and diverse ecosystem, as I make discoveries, mistakes, and hopefully progress. I am not an expert or professional. The project started in February 2023 and the location is Seguin, Texas, USA.
Rewilding My Lot 