While I didn't finish the ornamental grasses in front (yet), I also moved on to a different spot: the raised vegetable bed on our back patio. Just like the grasses, this bed had some stems and seed heads that I left behind from last season's plants. Tomato bushes. Herb stems.
I took my pruners to those and cut them up into small segments. And left them on the top of the bed. You can see the 'chopped' mulch in the two photos below. I typically top this bed with a couple of bags of compost and/or mushroom compost, so this plant litter will get incorporated into the soil later this Spring.
Here, below, is a closer look at some of the stems. These are 'woody' for the most part, so I cut them down to about 1/2" pieces so they'll decompose a little bit faster than they normally would if left larger.
I'm not a pro when it comes to 'mulching in place', but I'm using it more-and-more each season. Here's a video from the Royal Horticultural Society that talks about using the 'chop and drop' method (embedded below):
They talk about how you shouldn't use the chop and drop for every perennial in the garden and call out hostas, specifically, as one you should compost during your clean-up. There's a bit in the video that explains monocot plants (like Hostas) that have a parallel vein structure (vs. dicots that have veins that are more 'net-like'). Monocots break down, they create 'fiber-y structures' with 'mushy material'.
The exception that the RHS calls out are ornamental grasses. Huzzah!
The benefits of chop-and-drop clean-up (per the RHS) include: soil enrichment (the cut-up bits are organic matter), is easy (no hauling away to compost bin), is natural (mimics what happens in nature), is good for critters (the cuttings feed the soil which feeds critters) and they end by saying..."if done properly"...it can "still look really great".
That's a look *up* from the ground through a young, skinny tree limb as well as a larger, more mature (and confirmed) Black Walnut tree. The leaves, from a distance look similar. Back last year, I mentioned that I wanted to try to identify if a couple of young trees were worth keeping or if I should remove them. And, knowing that I wanted to hold myself accountable, I included it as #15 on my to-do list for the yard this year . After poking around on the web in various places , I think I've settled on this clear cut detail that I found on r/WhatIsThisPlant on Reddit : Walnut tree leaves have no notches. Tree of Heaven (an invasive tree), do. From u/blacksheep998 : Ailanthus has a small notch at the base of it's leaflets. Black walnut leaflets, while slightly toothed, lacked that distinctive nub. So, that's first thing to check: Does the little tree leaves have those 'thumbs' or notches? *Looks closer*... Sure, enough....
We were at the Menards in Bolingbrook and wandered out to where they keep the bags of lawn fertilizer. I was hoping to pick up a few bags of fertilizer and pre-emergent that I could put down late this Winter/early this Spring. As I've talked about over the years, I've evolved in my approach to feeding our lawn. When I started....I was all synthetic. I used the four-step program - all synthetics and some with weed/feed combined. Then...my eyes were opened (thanks to YouTube) on organics. Specifically Milorganite. I started to use biosolids. And, I stopped early Spring feedings. And, did a late season (Thanksgiving) feeding. And 'spoon fed' during the warm months and all of those things that people talk about online. Starting last year, I've kind of swung back on the synthetic --> organic spectrum. But, only half-way. I'll post about what I'm doing with the first application in another post....
I've written pretty extensively on my love of columnar trees here on the blog. We have this stand of eight Frans Fontaine European Hornbeams (that you see some of above) and have this Weeping White Spruce that I picked up this season in our yard. And I've posted multiple times about the columnar street trees of Tokyo over the years. My love of columnar, narrow trees is something I've think I've well established here. But, that doesn't mean that I know everything about them! Recently, I read a note from Amy in from Pretty Purple about her take on narrow trees and thought it was worth sharing here. Those of you who read the blog might remember Pretty Purple Door from my post earlier this year talking about tulip bulb colors and how she outlined some of the ways to make colors work together (add yellow!). In her post about narrow trees, she talks about how/why these trees work in suburban yards (space, duh!). She includes some...
Comments
Post a Comment
Be nice to each other here.