This is the "What are you doing in your yard these day's" item.
<I just need a place to tell eveyone how hard I've been working
on my hard.>

75 responses total.

Well, finaly the weather has gotten more consistent so I can
start raking.  Yes raking.  we just moved in to this place in
Nov, and all the raking didn't get done, and then the weather
was never good enough to do it again.  So finally, I'm out here
raking my butt off.  I started on wed, and raked the lanscaping and 
around the fence area <for about an hour> then yesterday proceeded
with the rest of the yard.  I have the side to do today,
and I'll be done with the front.  Then there's the back yard
which I'll be working on all weekend <weather permitting, of course>
After I clean up, I think we'll start planning our veggy garden.
We also need to weed and feed, and put some grass seed down in certain
areas.  

There's a ton of work, and I'll be gone for about 3 months, so I'm
trying to get alot of it done before I leave so my roomie doesn't
have to do everything.
<I feel MUCH better!>

I haven't done anything.  I am thinking of doing what they're doing
with large tracts in the Arb, i.e. letting it revert to prairie.  :)

heh heh
Well, I'm on day #4 of raking.  I finished the front and side yard y
yesterday.  Unfortunately, as I type, it's raining, and I can't
work on it today.  I've backed a total of 15 bags of leaves.
I'm pooped.

If you leave the leaves on the garden, they will decay and return their
nutrients to the soil. I assiduously practice this philosophy, and never
rake. That conveys some other benefits, too. (If the leaves kill the
grass, then you wont have to mow, either.)

We're in our third spring on Harbrooke now and mostly enjoying
the results of past effort.  There will be far less new planting
this year than last as the perennials are pretty much established.
The hosta garden, planted last May, seems to have made it with just
one plant as yet not making an appearance the season.  The sunny perennial
garden will need a few replacements though as something has developed
a fondness for miniature daylily roots.  

I'm still waiting for the lily-of-the-valley to pop up.  I can't
remember when they're supposed to be visible.  Along a picket
fence and an arbor, we've planted five different clematises, now in
their third season.  All, expect one, are starting to leaf, and
that one is a fall bloomer that typically gets a late start.  The
allium and tulips are maybe a week or two from blooming.  The
forsythia is a mass of yellow and the lilac bushes covered with
buds.  And we're going to have a bumper crop of sunflowers under
the birdfeeder.

Last year I planted annuals in early May, thinking I'd have that much
longer to enjoy them, but instead just ended up fretting over frosts.
So this year I'll wait a bit longer.  Maybe.

I'm hoping John will add another rose bush, replacing one that I
can only describe as boring.  It was planted by the previous
owners.  But roses are John's domain, along with lawn care.

Yes, we had a some raking to be done here, but mostly that was done
by a teenager who needed some extra money to feed his comic book habit.

So that's spring on Harbrooke.  So far, so good.

I've done a lot of raking. I planted many perennials already, and some
hardy annuals. I just planted a pink flowering dogweed tree and am soon
to get a Japanese Redbud. I bought four rose bushes this week (only $7.29
each at Farmer Grant's, and very nice specimens)--a red climber, a yellow
climber, a pink/orange tea rose and a yellow tea rose. I have mixed
feelings about the name of the yellow climber: Golden Showers.

True to my lawnal retentive nature, I have inaugurated my spring
lawn care program by spreading a light, refreshing layer of activated
sewage sludge on the grass.  This has resulted in a growth spurt
which will necessitate mowing in the next few days, methinks.

Groan. Lawns give me the sludges...:). Well, they hold the mud together,
which suits me, but they should *not* be encouraged to grow. remmers, do
you know that you are also spreading hexavalent chromium, and other nasty
ingredients of activated sewage sludge? 

How much did you grow, John?

A small amount of intellectual growth.  I now know that there's
something called "hexavalent chromium".

  Not that I really have a yard but I'm trying to figure out whether
or not to plant some flowers in the beds by the front door..

Sure, why not? Marigolds.
Re: #10. Hexavalent chromium is a carcinogen that gets into sewage
sludge because small metal plating firms dispose of wastes in the
sanitary sewers. It generally makes dried activated sludge unsuitable
for fertilization for food production. It is being reduced, slowly,
by environmental laws - when the powers-that-be get around to inspecting
(and often closing down) polluting plating firms. Don't breathe your
dried activated sewage sludge.

re #11,12.  Marigolds would be a good choice.  All you need to do is
buy a package of seeds and plant 'em.  They're pretty low maintenance
and they look nice, imho.

And they help to keep mesquitos away.

The bag of activated sewage sludge (brand name Milorganite) does carry
a warning not to use it on anything you plan to eat.

   Interesting, and disgusting.

I saw a short article on a suspected effect of estrogen hormones on the
reproduction of fish in stream receiving *treated* sewage treatment plant
outflow. Apparently some birth control pill ingredients make it 
through, and can upset the ecosystem. I bet things like that also collect
in activated sewage sludge. Some of these things can be absorbed
through the skin too - so don't walk on your grass barefoot. 

(this item linked to agora 40 as the link of the month. if you're not
reading this in the nature conference, why don't you join nature and
see what's going on there?)

Today it was supposed to rain, but it didn't, so I got a lot of
lawn care done.  Gave the back yard a near-scalping (I always cut
it extra-short for the first mowing of the season) and a light,
refreshing sprinkling of Scotts Turf Builder.  The front lawn
lawn, which I'd sewage sludged and turf builded last week, seems
to be growing awfully fast now, so I mowed that too.

If you've got a yard, there's lots to do in the spring, lots to do.

I get it, scalp the lawn first thing and it you probably won't have
to mow it the rest of the summer...it'll take several months to recover?

Today we went on a geological field trip to just north of Jackson, but
our guide didn't show up at the appointed time and place, so we tried
to see the "prominent ridge capped by Bayport Limestone", but out there
prominent ridges are in the mind of the beholder. So we looked at the
(channelized) Portage River, and Jackson Prison, and were glad we were
in neither. 

I've not touched my lawn yet, but I plan to rent a large ( 8' blade ) Cat
bulldozer and remove the topsoil before removing 600 yards of the sand 
underneath.  The bigger the boys the bigger the toys:) whee.

rcurl, what is the name of the escarpment that surounds Michigan?

You may be thinking of the Niagaran Escarpment, resistant outcropping
of Silurian limestones and dolomites. The escarpment (as such) runs
from the Bruce Peninsula (WI), across the center of the UP, across
Ontario (and Niagara Falls) and into New York. 

Re #20:  Nope, that's not the way it works.  I gave the front lawn a
near-scalping (i.e. set the lawn mower to the lowest height that wouldn't
scalp the lawn), and five days later it was ready to be mowed at normal
height.

So, I finally finished my lawn!  Yay!  Friday I bagged up the last bag.
A total of 30 from the yard.

Since I've raked the yard, the annuals have gone CRAZY.  Tons of flowers
blooming all over the place!

I hung my hummingbird feeders yesterday too.  Oh yeah, summer is here!

Um, Ken mowed the lawn for the first time this season on Sunday...
Basically, I just watch.  I'm not much involved with the yard.

Re 24.  The Bruce Peninsula is in Ontario.  I think you mean the Door
Peninsula.

I'd never heard before that the Niagara Escarpment runs as far west
as Michigan or Wisconsin.

Whoops - shows how well I know WI! Yes, its the Door peninsula there.
However the Bruce Peninsula is part of the Niagara Escarpment too.
You can see the NE in the UP, driving south from Sault Ste Marie: its
the range of hills you see from some distance away, and enter through
a low point. In the UP the escarpment faces north - it is a cuesta,
receding to the south, because of the regional dip toward the center
of the Michigan basin. Some places it rises ca. 200 feet above the
glacial lake planes to the north; elsewhere, it is hardly noticeable,
having been eroded flat, though there are considerable areas of dolomite
or limestone bedrock near the surface. 

   30 bags Jeanne?  How big is your lawn?  Or are you doing the neighbors
too?

As reported elsewhere, by cherry tree is now in full bloom!

But you have a cold, or hay fever: sorry to hear it.

Having moved to the country, the "yard" is now 12 acres, and there is
lots to do.  Over the weekend I blazed about 1000 feet of new trails
through the woods for walking and skiing.  That was Saturday.  On
Sunday we had 10 trees moved from the woods to around the house. 
These are pretty big trees, some 12 inches in diameter and 25 feet
tall.  The transplanting machine tree digs out five cubic yards of
earth along with the tree.  It is a *big* machine attached to a big,
heavy truck.  Since the trail into the woods was still a little soft,
they had to use a bulldozer to pull/push the transplanter truck in
and out.  Quite a project.  Once the trees were in their new homes, I
got to mulch, stake, feed, and water them.  I've decided that
sledgehammer is a younger man's sport.  A lot of money and effort,
but the house is much happier now.

 My woodland wildflower garden is looking good. I've been planting in it
for a few years, and now it's pretty much all filled in. Bleeding hearts,
dutchman's breeches, violets of all colors, jack-in-the-pulpit, trilliums
of all colors, forget-me-nots, and blue and white grape hyacinths abound.
I got some of my plants from the Farmer's Market, some from the woods way
back behind my house, and some from my property up north.

Our wild perennials are coming up: Herniawort, Solomon's Piles, False 
Solomon's Piles, Chunderblossoms, Nosebright, Green-Around-The-Gills, 
Ladygiblets, Jack-In-The-Toilet, Dickweed.  

The leaves popped on my plane tree (European sycamore) today! (Unfortunately,
so did the dandelions, but hey!) It's spring!

You have dandelions on your sycamore?

Heh.  I don't know why people don't like dandelions.  I think a field 
full of dandelions looks nice.

Re #35:  I've got some extra Perennial-b-Gon if you need it, md.

Re #38:  A field of dandelions *does* look nice, when it's in bloom.
But have you ever looked at the field, close up, after the dandelions
have gone to seed?  Yuck.

- Backtalk version 1.3.30 - Copyright 1996-2006, Jan Wolter and Steve Weiss