I mentioned our mountain of wood chips in a previous post. In all, we had eight giant piles of wood chips delivered when the local tree trimmers were clearing around area powerlines. One pile is all cedar and will be used to mulch the existing beds. But the remaining mixed piles will form the foundation of my new landscape plan on the east side. That long stretch of property gets only morning sun and has a good deal of shade from the large oaks, cedar, hackberry, and various other trees. Grass never grew well there and it's been host to brambles, poison ivy, and other undesirable weeds. So I mowed it all down and am smothering it with cardboard and wood chips. I'll mix in compost, manure, gin trash, and the like as we're able to eventually create a woodland bed for azaleas, hydrangeas, ferns, hostas, and other shade lovers.
The expanse is about 10-15 feet wide in places and extends at least 100 feet, so trucking in topsoil would have been astronomically expensive. I'm really excited about the free wood chips, but it's back-breaking work to move them around and spread them out as we shape the beds. We may have to eventually call in some machinery to get it all where it needs to go, but right now it's our regular morning workout. Jeff calls it "Farm Strong", our personal version of CrossFit!
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| Queen of the hill |
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| Maybe one day, those piles will look like this! |
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| Good thing we have the girls for help! |
I love your place! It's gorgeous. It's like you have your own little farm. Well, you DO have your own little farm!
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