Our regionally specialized grass seed just arrived!
Guess it’s time to rent a spreader and a roller and get our other side always greener growing. Now how do we keep the birds from devouring all the seed? I read that I should put stakes in the ground and tie shiny streamers to them that blow in the breeze to scare birds away. Even if it works, which seems unlikely, no squirrel will fall for that.
Mmmmmm, Zodiak Chewings. Sounds like something a squirrel would adore.
Can I just start with the incredible view from my backyard across my neighbors’ yards towards Providence College?
Spring is suddenly busting out of her halter top! It’s like a botanic garden back there, which makes our dirtscape look all the more desolate…
That changed somewhat on the front slope today. The truck from Sylvan Nursery pulled in at around 9 this morning and dropped off our plants…
Shiva and Rich offloaded 199 in all…
The four flowering currants arrived from Forest Farm just a few days ago — flowering!
Today’s arrivals are also showing signs of spring. The cute little bearberries are blooming…
And the yellowroot plants are fully in flower already…
And the heavenly scented sweetferns will soon unfurl…
Shiva and Rich started getting things in the ground right away, first cutting holes through the Curlex matting so they could dig holes for the plants…
They made their way through most of the plants today…
By the end of the day, I’d say they probably made it about two-thirds of the way across the 100-foot stretch…
They literally stopped traffic all day. So many rubber-neckers curious to see the transformation, I guess. Or Rich and Shiva busting out of their halter tops.
Tomorrow, Shiva and our friend Ellen will finish up and determine how many more plants we’ll need to fill out the space nicely. I can’t wait to watch this happy hillside transform as things grow over the next year. Thanks to everyone who helped to make this happen!
A small portion of our new yard will be reserved for grass. What do I know about grass seed? Nada. But I do know the people at University of Rhode Island Turf Grass Program have researched everything for me, so all I have to do is dig up the right information. Here’s what I’ve found out so far.
There are two kinds of grass categories in the U.S.: cool-season grasses of the North and warm-season grasses of the South. We’re cool! Who knew?
The most successful lawns are made up of not just one kind of seed but a variety that combine multiple strengths. We’d like to end up with a lawn that requires relatively low water usage and chemical-free maintenance while taking a beating from a 5-year-old.
You can customize your seed mix to fit your specific site situation. For us, that means seed that covers a mix of sun and shade.
There are a number of websites where you can customize your seed mix. The one we’re going with is the Seed Super Store. They also offer an option to plug in your zip code and, whether you need seed for lawn or shade, get a seed mix recommendation. For my area, it recommends:
SS5000: This outstanding sunny mixture combines three superior Kentucky Bluegrass varieties with our best fine fescue and perennial ryegrass to produce a lush, dark green lawn. Contains equal parts of Midnight, Bedazzled and NuChicago bluegrass, and Zodiac chewings fescue and Amazing GS perennial ryegrass.
The URI Master Gardeners’ site claims this sunny mix is “basically a URI #1 with improved varieties,” which assures me the Seed Super Store people know what they’re doing.
Like they say, it’s always greener on the other side of the fence. With any luck we’ll be the other side.
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A few bookmarks for this post:
Green Acres: A great article from This Old House on lawn seeding, with insight from a URI professor of plant sciences.
Turfgrasses recommended by URI for Rhode Island… or get recommendations for where you live from your cooperative extension office.
Another source for Best seed choices for Rhode Island.
Organic Landscaping site by Harvard’s Facilities Maintenance Operations: I can’t overstate how amazing their recent dedication to organic landscaping practices is (Fall ’09) — including its many, many lawns. A fantastic resource for landscaping without chemicals and how to create compost and compost tea for healthier soil, turf and plants.
Excellent organic landscaping how-to video featuring Harvard’s program, as seen on This Old House.
Well, now they’ve gone and done it, those Savages. They left us with the most pristine dirtscape I’ve ever seen. If we f**k this up, it’s completely our fault.
92 yards of loamy, composty goodness. Raked out and ready to receive grass seed and plantage. Which needs to happen immediately.
So a quick rundown of what happened today:
Adam dug out the 8′ or so of icky street frontage ground in front of our new retaining wall…
[I’m sure he’d like me to note that he wasn’t operating the mini excavator while on his cell phone.] Now that some nice loam is put down, we’ll be seeding this with grass to connect with our neighbor’s bit of turf…
Rich secured a few more strips of Curlex on the front slope just in time for the arrival of the plants tomorrow morning…
And Mr. Savage not only got rid of the dirt ramp put in to move equipment up the hill…
He also improved on what was originally there by getting out the last of the rocks and smoothing out the irregularities with loam…
We’ll use that pile of crushed stone somewhere else, I’m sure. The last of the rhododendrons got sent merrily on its way to its new home at Rich and Story’s house…
I started marking out where the raised beds will go in the veggie garden…
But mostly I just stood around looking dumbfounded at our new, virgin yard…
I’m gonna miss me some Savages. They packed up all their toys and took them away…
Think I can get them to come back and do the inside of the house?
What a difference a day makes! It really does look like we have a whole new yard.
Yesterday morning began with the arrival of a tri-axel filled with Smithfield Peat’s finest screened loam/compost mix. Impressive. The Savages broke out the big guns…
7:30 am, Adam starts with a little more grading out back with the mini excavator…
You can hardly even tell the water collection tank is there. Well, except for the giant manhole covers and the filter, of course. We’ll remove one of those covers and screen it all with plants soon enough…
For future reference, David marked down where the overflow piping and other underground bits of the system are hiding. Probably a good idea…
The veggie zone got raked out…
… then the loam was brought in and spread with the bobcat. So rich, it looks like brownie mix…
Our plants are going to be soooo spoiled…
Rich and Mr. Savage perfected the grade out back so that water would flow away from the house and down the slope…
Then it was ready for loam…
Which Adam had spread in no time…
Ever since we moved in, I’ve been looking forward to finding a new home for five fairly young rhododendrons. The last owner must have put them in hoping to add privacy to the downstairs patio area… which is ridiculous for several reasons. One: those suckers take forever to grow, so there wouldn’t be privacy screening for at least another decade. And Two: they planted them practically on top of each other and way too close to the pathway — hard to believe looking at them now, but these will be monsters when they finally reach 12′ tall and 12′ across…
So Mr. Savage dug them up for Rich to take home with him. Plant them and love them, Story!
Mr. Savage added a little soil and smoothed out the eroded slope along the road…
… the entire 100′ foot length of it. Wow, that looks incredible!
Then Rich and Shiva dug a shallow trench along the top of the slope where the biodegradable Curlex erosion control matting will be secured…
That was a lot of digging…
Then the two of them rolled the Curlex down the slope…
… and secured it with our natural, biodegradable staples at the top and bottom.
Up the hill, down the hill, up the hill… and so on. Thanks, Rich!
By late afternoon, the slope was completely transformed. The Curlex won’t break down for three years, which is plenty of time for plants to get established. Speaking of which, the plants arrive this Tuesday…
Meanwhile, David made a trip to Sylvan Nursery in Westport, MA, to pick up our focal point tree for the backyard…
Doesn’t look like much in the truck…
After months of deliberation, I finally settled on a Betula nigra Cully Heritage River Birch. Yes, I considered many other gorgeous options — Perrotia Persica (Persian Ironwood), Stewartia Pseudocamillia (Japanese Stewartia), Fagus Sylvatica Tortuosa (Tortuous European Beech) and Cercidiphyllum Japonicium (Katsura or Caramel Tree), were top contenders. But the size and multi-trunked habit of the Heritage Birch was just right. I’ve been stalking just such a tree in a neighborhood where I run. This is what it looked last last summer…
The peeling bark is really something…
So with the help of Adam in the bobcat, Shiva, David and Rich got the tree up the slope…
… and hoisted it into the hole..
And, voila! Landscaping has officially begun. Thanks to Shiva and Ellen for making the tree-sleuthing trip to Sylvan last week to find the perfect specimen for us. It’s gawgeous!
Birches grow quickly, so this should fill out nicely in no time. Will look lovely from the living area…
Thank you so much Savages. You rawk!
Who needs Good Friday when you can have Amazingly Awesome Friday, like we had today?
First things first. David finished plumbing the rainwater collection system, connecting the anti-backflow valve and laying the overflow pipe into a bed of gravel in the trench that was dug yesterday. Looks crazy, doesn’t it?
Then the overflow piping got covered in crushed stone and the trench was backfilled with dirt…
The piping trench alongside the house got brought back up to grade with dirt…
Then the gravel bed for that 2′ buffer around the house got spread. Eventually, we’ll add galvanized steel edging to hold and define it, then this buffer will get topped off with smooth, black beach pebbles (3rd house down at link for example)…
At the back of the house, the patio area was readied for a bed of crushed stone…
Crushed stone was spread to about 6″ deep today. This will form the bed for the concrete strips to be poured some day in the not too distant future…
The world’s most awesome worker bees raking out all that gravel…
Have I mentioned lately how much I love you guys?
With the upper level done, the boys moved down to the storage area under the patio and dug that out a few inches in preparation for tomorrow’s loam arrival…
And with that, the day was done.
Tomorrow, a tad more grading, loam spreading and erosion control matting will get secured to the front slope. See you then!
Busy day in the yard. I’ll keep it brief.
Dug the ramp to get the equipment up the slope and into the yard…
First stop: the future veggie/herb/fruit area, which until now has only been ripe with the tripping-hazard roots of straggling juniper and the unsympathetic thorns of flowering quince…
Adam scraped up the undesirables…
Rich spread the dirt around in preparation for the good loam to come in soon…
Digging of the trench alongside the house began. Water will be collected from the roof and channeled to piping that will run to the giant water collection tank…
Where there weren’t boulders in the way, there were cantankerous roots to subdue…
The trench was brought around the corner to the tank…
Then the water collection piping got sorted out…
… and hooked up.
The overflow piping starts to go in…
While David sorts out the tank piping, the boys dug out the patio area so that it will be ready for the arrival of a few inches of crushed stone tomorrow…
And Adam made quick work of removing the lead soil along the neighbor’s property line…
The nasty soil got carted over to the dump truck and hauled away…
A good sized stump made the trip as well…
We accidentally displaced some newborn snakes while digging today. These are harmless Northern Brown Snakes. They like to eat slugs, which is fine by me…
Also unearthed a relic from the days when this was the back forty for a former sizable estate at the top of the hill…
Back to the water collection tank. A massive trench was dug for the overflow piping…
When I say massive, I mean over my head…
We can now visit the Grand Canyon — without leaving home!
They dropped it off today — the big equipment. Round Two of the yard makeover starts tomorrow at 7 a.m. This means digging the trench for the water collection piping, final grading, topping off with good loam and much-needed erosion control for the front slope.
Here’s the lineup…
Can’t wait to get this moving so we can finally get some plants in the ground. We did some necessary property line defining today in preparation for the soil that’s coming.
Which reminds me that I need to order some heavy-duty steel edging, asap. I’ll get right on that. In the meantime…
Opened up our soil test results from UMass this week. Velly intelestink, if you find this kind of thing intelestink. To recap, we took samples from four different spots around the yard in anticipation of pulling together a nice, healthy landscape:
The Veggie Garden (VG)…
The Back Storage area (BS)…
The Driveway Slope (DS)…
and the far side of our back yard near our neighbor’s property line (blue house). We call that Frank’s Edge (FE)…
So, results. Let’s get right to the fun stuff. btw, ppm means parts per million.
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Estimated Lead: (VG) 102 ppm, (BS) 108 ppm, (DS) 84 ppm, (FE) 3039 ppm!!!
from UMass:
< 500 ppm = Low | 500-100 ppm = Medium
1000-3000 = High | > 3000 = omg Very High
Total lead levels higher than 1000 ppm are legally hazardous. Contact your state’s Department of Environmental Protection regarding removal of contaminated soil.
and
… young children and pregnant women should avoid soil contact. Total lead levels above 1000 ppm probably represent a hazardous waste situation.
Clearly the high lead is from paint removed from the neighbor’s house — a pretty common occurrence in New England. Luckily it’s in a spot farthest from our house. However, it’s still in our yard where Bix plays. Yikes. Soil, consider yourself GONE.
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Soil pH: (VG) 6.0, (BS) 5.4, (DS) 6.4, (FE) 5.8
UMass recommendations for Veggie Garden:
Incorporate 12 lbs of ground dolomite (magnesium rich) limestone per 100 sq ft.
for Back Storage area:
Apply 50 lb of dolomitic limestone / 1000 sq ft. Apply 2 lb of phosphorous / 1000 sq ft. Apply 6 lb of potassium /1000 sq ft.
for Driveway Slope:
No limestone this year. Apply 1 lb phosphorous / 1000 sq ft. Apply 2 lb of potassium / 1000 sq ft.
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Nitrogen: (VG) 7 ppm, (BS) 0 ppm, (DS) 6 ppm, (FE) n/a
Back storage area has no plants and no compost, so of course no nitrogen. That will change. I suppose they didn’t supply nitrogen info for Frank’s edge because they didn’t want to encourage me to amend the soil of death?
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Organic Matter: (VG) 3.6%, (BS) 2%, (DS) 3.7%, (FE) 6.7%
UMass recommendations: desirable range 4-10%
For vegetables, if you prefer nutrients from organic sources, apply the following per 100 sq ft…
Nitrogen: 1-2 bushels well-rotted manure PLUS 1 lb dried blood
Phosphorous: 3.5 lbs steamed bone meal OR 10 lbs rock phosphate
Potassium: 5 lbs wood ash
For flowers… Apply one-haf the organic recommendation above.
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All good to know. Also good to know: don’t lick the ground over by Frank’s house.
Just a quick note: David and our good friend Coryndon have signed up for a beekeeping class at CCRI. Bees! My future garden is buzzing with happiness at the thought.
The class is called Backyard Beekeeping and starts April 1 in Warwick. Still slots open if you want to join them.
Did you see in the New York Times this weekend that soon, raising honeybees will no longer be illegal?
New York City is among the few jurisdictions in the country that deem beekeeping illegal, lumping the honeybee together with hyenas, tarantulas, cobras, dingoes and other animals considered too dangerous or venomous for city life. But the honeybee’s bad rap — and the days of urban beekeepers being outlaws — may soon be over.
Good to see a major city come to its senses, especially since urban farmers have been raising bees on rooftops in defiance of the law for decades. This is just one more manifestation of a trend that’s been gaining momentum. Obviously we’re not the only ones who fear for the honeybees given their ever shrinking habitat and colony collapse disorder. Good thing.
David will let you know how the class goes, I’m sure. Or maybe you should take a class and find out firsthand!