The yard here is really not bad, especially compared to the yard we started out with in Pittsburgh. It’s nearly flat. There are some flower beds that are full of a few plants I recognize, a bunch of plants I can’t identify, and hostas. So many hostas. I do not, it turns out, especially like hostas, but I know that’s an unpopular point of view. I do really like the coneflowers, the rose, what I think might be jewel weed??? (never seen that in a garden before, and it had me looking around suspiciously for poison ivy), some purple flowers I can’t identify, what I think is a snowberry bush, and the ferns. I don’t like the invasive lilies, at all, which is a bummer given how many there are. In the front, we appear to have been part of either a joint neighborhood effort or a seed-bombing, because there are some very healthy milkweeds on exactly opposite sides of the road; I’m planning to gather some of their seeds to start a patch in the back, where monarchs might find less traffic / more comfort.
Some of the rocks around the yard are painted, including a large crocodile head in the side yard (the image for this post, taken in winter because it is totally hidden by plants right now) and a bunch of smaller ones in the back flower bed, which was reportedly a fairy garden for the grandchild. There’s one really nice granite-looking rock that I’m excited to pull out and make more prominent, too. (I love big cool rocks in yards and gardens.)
There’s a cherry tree in the side yard, which the birds seem to enjoy, as do I, but it’s also the only tree we have right now. And it’s badly in need of pruning. We’re told the cherries have become jam in the past, even though they are small and probably more than half pit by volume. We’ll see?
So, it’s a good yard, but it’s also a very normal yard. Lots of grass. If, hypothetically, one were to stop mowing in early June because toxic caterpillars were living in the tree above the yard, they would find that lupines, or something that looks a lot like them, also grow out in the yard, making it at least more interesting than grass alone.
The thing is, we hate mowing (even when it’s safe) and love birds and pollinators. I also hate invasive species. So we’re taking a shortcut that we never really considered for our (larger, sloped, and wildly uneven) Pittsburgh yard and having the whole thing roto-tilled and then covered with landscaping fabric and mulch. No grass!!! There’s currently a fence through the middle of the yard that will be removed, and we’re also (perhaps controversially) having the flower beds taken out, in order to kill off any non-native plants so we can start over at zero. The only plant I’ve asked them to save is the snowberry, because it’s right outside my office window and popular with hummingbirds. To be fair to the previous owners, I’ll probably end up re-planting a few of the same plants they had, and the (really nice) yard guy convinced me to keep one hosta in a big pot, at least. We’re definitely keeping all of the rocks, too.
I feel like this proves we are capable of learning from mistakes: we worked so hard on the Pittsburgh yard, killing all of that bamboo and pulling out a bunch of invasive plants, and we still wasted a lot of (but our neighbors would say not enough of) our time mowing. We put in so much work, and we still had so, so far to go before we could feel good about it and see about getting it certified as a wildlife-, pollinator-, and/or bird-friendly yard/garden/habitat. So this time, instead of doing years of hard and not very rewarding work ourselves, we’re paying someone to do it, and then we (ok, let’s be real, I) get to do the fun part of planting little patches of native perennial bushes and flowers and medicinal herbs, plus some raised/elevated beds of heirloom vegetables, plus hopefully a fruit tree or two. Because of the caterpillars already infesting the cherry tree, younger/more vulnerable fruit tree(s?) may have to wait a bit; we’ll see.
And we are putting in a little pond!!! I mean, the professionals are putting it in, but I’m going to plan for the plants and fish(?? TBD) and fill it and tend to it and hopefully get to see frogs and salamanders as a reward for the effort. I want to make sure there’s a shallow bit for bees and birds to be able to drink, too. It will be small enough that I can’t reasonably expect wild ducks to hang out for long, but I can maybe hope to be a stopover point now and then. I’m going to do some research about the best pond plants to encourage dragonflies and other ways to make a pond a net negative for mosquitos, because I want to be outside to enjoy it.
The yard guy says we should really drain the pond in winter, to help the insert last longer, so if I find some kind of fish that eats mosquito larvae, I’ll need to bring them inside, in an aquarium, during the winter. Our frost line (72 inches, according to a random internet map) is deeper than the pond will go (a foot and a half), so nothing can reasonably overwinter in it, as I understand things.
At first, the yard will be pretty bare, with just the nice little pond and a few sparse planters and a fire pit, which we bought in Pittsburgh but never even took out of the box, because flattening part of that yard enough to place it safely was so daunting. It will take a year or two before the yard starts to fill up and look “done,” and probably longer before I get it where I want it. But I am so excited to be able to start with the fun part right away, instead of having to slog through years of slowly digging out the invasives and replacing the grass and all that. It means I can do a little experimenting, too: besides more standard garden stuff, I’d like to try to grow a mushroom bed in one of the shady areas of the yard and a moss bed in another.
To help with the traditional garden aspects and to do a little bit of that “throwing myself into living in Maine” I mentioned in an earlier post, I’ve applied for the Maine Master Gardener program, which is happily possible for me because it’s all online. We’ll see whether they like my application and whether they have enough volunteer opportunities for someone who can’t do long hours of physical labor or any kind of indoor event; they’ve got good digital infrastructure, so I’m hoping more hands to maintain it would be welcome. If not, I will need to decide whether to take the course without the volunteer portion (to become a Maine Gardener, not a Master Gardener), which I honestly think I might still decide to do. My gardening knowledge is so weird and jumbled, especially given how many biomes I’ve lived in, that an organized introduction to gardening, soil types, composting, and pest management in Maine could be just the thing, you know?
If you know me, you might at this point be wondering about two things: 1) the 12-foot skeleton and 2) my chicken plans. Let’s talk birds first.
I mean, first off, I like ducks better, and the extra work of keeping water for them to bathe in is reportedly made up for with hardier birds and extra eggs. But both ducks and chickens are effectively illegal to have in our area of town (though one house on our street has chickens anyway, to my delight). I might talk to the neighbor on one side about their feelings on yard birds, in the hopes that they’d promise not to report us; the neighbor on the other side is one of those “mind yer own business” New Englanders, who also mostly can’t see our yard because of the placement of sheds, so I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t say anything; and behind us is a small apartment building, where nobody ever goes outdoors except to mow. But I also bought a couple of books about raising quail, to see if that’s something I want to commit to, instead of ducks or chickens. They’d only be legal on a technicality, and only if I occasionally brought them indoors, but they’re also quieter and easier to hide than larger birds, making the legality sort of a side issue, anyway. I just really like the idea of having eggs that I know came from happy, well-cared-for birds. And if I’m honest, I also love the idea of having cute little pets who will eat table scraps and force me to exit my house every single day, which would be good for me. (And I’m allergic to dogs, so that isn’t an option.) So, more to come on that.
As for Sam the Skeleton, they did move with us from Pittsburgh and will be going up … originally, I had claimed last weekend, since Halloween starts on September 1, but I (voluntarily!) gave up my Labor Day so I’d only have to spend one day of PTO for a 4-day weekend on the 7th-10th (that worked better with coworkers’ time off). So probably Sam goes up next weekend, instead. By that point, the yard guy may already have started, and we’ll have had time to clean up the area in front of the house where Sam will live. The plan is to put them up all year and do different hats and accessories as holidays change. I didn’t get a skeleton lighting kit before they sold out, and I’m not going to pay double to a scalper, so Sam will start out just a bit plain. I think that’s probably fine, though.
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