Wildlife Gardening: Wildlife Sanctuary Help!, 0 by Equilibrium

Equilibrium wrote:
Cracked up at your d-mail and am very grateful you have my photos tucked away.

Here goes for Donna and Deborah- this is an area of my property that was left alone... until just recently when I went in and removed somewhere around 1000 buckthorns and a handful of Japanese honeysuckles. You'll be able to see quite a few stumps that were painted with chemicals and left standing. The reason why they weren't cut flush with the ground was to see if they need to be retreated with chemicals or not next year. What I am trying to do in this area is to create raised beds for Cypripedium acaule and a few other acid lovers while creating a footpath to provide visual access to people who visit the property. I've gone with stepping stones in this area. I must admit they are labor intensive as you need to dig out a hole that is about 6" in diameter larger than them and about 6" deep so that the holes can be filled with sand. If you don't set the stepping stones in the sand, they will crack. I have about 200 set in sand, another 200 that have holes dug ready to be set, another 100 or so positioned where I will want them set but no holes dug for them, and another 100 stacked up waiting to be spotted. None of them have been backfilled yet. That can wait until next year and I'll have weed free something or other brought to the site to raise up the surrounding area around the stepping stones back to ground level. Throughout the photos you will see some that seem to be floating a few inches above grade, that's because I'll go back and fill in around all of them after they are all set. Ran out of time this year to keep working. It is my intent to gather up some of the local mosses and toss them in a blender with buttermilk and sprinkle my mix around the edges of the stepping stones in the areas where they are set that the shade is denser. Thoughts being that the moss would come sooner or later so I might as well speed up the process to help keep the ickies and nasties at bay.

Here are photos of the area and please remember it is "under construction". This area is toward the middle of the area in which I am currently working and we call it the junction in that it goes three different directions with a central raised bed-