Why I Oughta...

A couple of days ago, I posted in my [compost bins] diary a look at the current state of my bins now that I've topped them off with a lot of ornamental grass material - reeds, canes and blades.  I tried to chop the material down into smaller segments in an attempt to break it up a bit and speed decomposition.    While I was cleaning up the grasses, I also went into the front porch bed and clipped off and cleaned up the front of the bed.  That included a number of Dusty Millers and all of the Seslaria Autumnalis (Autumn Moor Grass) .    Here, below, is a look at this bed after I trimmed up the Moor Grasses - but left behind some of the Fall leaf litter that has accumulated over Winter:  I also have three large Karl Foerster Feather Reed Grasses in the island bed between our driveway and front walk.  I pruned all of those ornamental grasses and cut them off an inch-or-two above their crown.  That island bed after the ornamental grasses have been cleaned up for Spring is below: I'

On Monday, I posted a series of photos showing how I had used my post-hole digger to excavate holes - getting into the clay layer below my topsoil - in our front porch bed.  I ended up with more than a dozen of them in various spots around the bed including up front.  My goal was to help improve the soil conditions, break up that bathtub effect and try to make the area a little bit more hospitable to plants and roots .   I called it 'vertical mulching' in Monday's post, but today is a little bit more about that process and how I filled the holes. I recently removed the chicken-wire rings around our Disneyland Roses to prepare them for Spring.  In each of those three rings was a heavy bed of mulched-up leaves that I collected last year.  Since Fall, there had been a tiny bit of decomposition, but A LOT of the leaves that I used to protect the roses were Oak leaves and those are VERY.SLOW to decompose.  So, I went over to the roses and filled up my trug with some leaf litter

Over the past week or so, I've been working on - and posting about - the front yard beds.  Mostly, I've been working on - and thinking about the soil conditions.  Since we moved in - Summer of 2017 - I haven't had much luck at all up there.  That's six growing seasons (well...five full ones at least) and I've lost things, have had other things not grow so well and removed the biggest plant in this bed last Fall:  the large Norway Maple tree.   I started last week doing some vertical boring of holes using my post hole digger .  Both, to get a real look at the soil conditions, understand how deep the clay lies under the topsoil and to (maybe?) help improve the conditions by cutting through some of that bathtub effect that takes place in clay soils.  After I dug a hole about 12" around and 24-or-so-inches deep, I proceeded to fill it up with some leaves and a big helping of biosolids to top it off.  My thought is that this 'vertical mulching' will improve