Fall Yard Work

There are a lot of fall yard chores! I’ve been trying to do a little on every sunny day recently.

Raking leaves always takes a lot more energy than I remember. Our trees are 20+ years old and big enough to have a lot of leaves….too many to leave on the grass since there are enough of them to form thick mats and kill the grass. Actually – the raking is easier than carting them back to the forest where they can decay into thick mulch on the forest floor. The yard crews use high powered mowers to blow them into piles and into the forest but the noise is overwhelming; for me it negates the pleasure of being outdoors on an autumn day…so I rake.

Cleaning up the deck takes some time too. This year, I am cutting the dried summer stalks and transplanting day lily bulbs (taking them from the beds where the deer always find the buds before they can bloom) into pots and planting native flower seeds (False Indigo and Joe-Pye Weed) that require overwintering before they can sprout. Our deck should attract even more butterflies and hummingbirds next summer! I’ve also harvested the celery stems and leaves that rooted last spring from the base of purchased (organic) celery. I’ve already enjoyed them in soup!

My husband will do a final mowing of the yard sometime this week to mulch the leaves still on the yard…and we’ll declare the fall yard work ‘done’ – ready for winter.

Invasive Plants in my Yard

I’ve been working in my yard between 7 and 8 AM all this week and finally got around to looking more closely at the area at the edge of the yard that blends into the forest. Yikes! The edge has been overrun with invasive plants!

I noticed the wavy leaf basket grass first. It was covering the area. I started pulling out handfuls and noticed other plants underneath --- maybe some of them are natives; I’ll have to go back with a book next time I work in that area. Then I noticed the mile-a-minute; not profuse (yet) but it does live up to its name. I pulled it out too.

Then I saw a pretty little blue flower that I didn’t recognize. I left it and went back later to take a picture so that I could identify it. Aargh! It’s Commelina communis (common names Asiatic Dayflower, mouse ears, dew herb) and it’s an invasive from Asia. That’s one more plant to pull in the area.

Woodland Gardening

Last week I attended at session on Woodland Gardening at the Maryland Master Naturalist Annual Conference….which influenced my observations during a walk at Centennial Lake this past weekend.

The idea of woodland gardening is to create outdoor spaces that mimic woodlands. My planting the sassafras and spice bush in the back of my yard - moving the forest further into my ‘yard’ by another 3 feet - was my first attempt at it but I’m already thinking about my next project and looking at woodlands for ideas.

The talk presented some principles of woodland gardening and I noticed examples of these in my walk:

Distill the essence of the forest. One ‘essence’ that I find awe inspiring is the view upward. It would take a long time to create such a few in a garden. I will be content with the wall of green where the forest begins toward the back of my yard.

Celebrate light. I noticed light that filtered through the trees to the woodland floor

And highlighted leaves of the trees from above.

Sculpt with layers…which means mimicking or allowing succession to take place.I noticed that the park maintenance was not cutting as much of the grassy area around the lake - letting a meadow develop. There was a lot more milkweed in the park than in previous years which bodes well for any Monarch Butterflies in the area.

Integrate woodland textures. There are redbuds planned along some of the walkways at the edge of the forest. Their heart shaped leaves and bean-like seed pods are like a gateway to the larger trees in the forest.