yard thoughts

Modern. Native. Edible. Functional. Social.


We live in an older, traditional neighborhood so I know the front yard needs to have to traditional green turf and neat landscape. We are trying to keep a clear view outside the windows with low-growing shrubs and plants like heather and dwarf conifers. We'd like to add a few more large rocks to those arrangements.

I cut out and pulled up a ton of English ivy off the trees, fence and house, where it once festooned every tall tree. We removed the tacky plastic non-functional shutters from all of the windows. A few of the windows need to be replaced due to cracked glass. We plan to build or install as large a shed as we can in back to become a mini-workshop and tool storage building. John wants to have a compact woodshop with a small outside deck that he can work at. We also need the space to store large things like ladders. We still desperately need house numbers either mounted on brick or posted in the front yard and on the mailbox.

We would like to use mostly native plants and edible landscaping for the back yard, which has a wood fence that we plan to replace. We also have a laid stone retaining wall on one side at the back of our lot that needs to be repaired, preferrably using all the original stones so that we don't have to purchase too many more. I think 2/3 of the wall could be original stone - maybe more. We had crepe myrtle trees that had been attacked by ambrosia beetles that have been cut down along the rock wall side of the house that now have stumps that need to finally be removed/ground down. My guess is that some sort of new plants and shrubs need to go along the rock wall to help with erosion control.

NO English Ivy! I am still removing it everywhere I can, mostly concentrating on taking it off the trees. My neighbor shares my hatred of overgrown English ivy. She's working at ridding her yard of it as well. I am also taking it upon myself to pull out poison ivy where I see it. Slowly, the old roots of the poison ivy are going away and I cut down any flowers/seeds from the poison ivy when I spot it trying to reproduce, whittling way at it as best I can. I am a one-woman ivy-killing warrior. I'm not agains all vines - just those troublesome invasive or poisonous plants. Grapes are cool. Muscadines are cool. Grapes would be great. I even turn an occasional blind eye to Virginia creeper if it's not in my way.

The inside of the back yard is mostly mud, mulch and shade. We have new plantings of edible and/or native plants like elderberry, chokeberry, blueberry, trillium, ferns, golden seal, jack-in-the-pulpit and I'd like to add more variety so that I could have year-round blooms for bees and birds (and humans). I have a dinky herb garden that I am still figuring out.  We are also planning to place a small fire pit/grill and seating area to the side of the future shed.

And the drive way needs to be repaved - preferably with some sort of simple roof added at the top for the cars. The car shelter is not a priority but it is something that would make life a lot nicer.