This little story is in my DG diary, it shows the majority of the plants in our back yard.
There are a few non natives, along with how we went about it, and a picture of our patio.
I hope this will be of help and inspire others to try it.
http://davesgarden.com/community/blogs/t/frostweed/2039/
Josephine.
Oh Josephine, that looks like a slice of heaven, no kidding! Jaw-dropping gorgeous!
It is - no photo can do that yard justice.
Thank you Angele and Mitch, you two can really make a person feel good.
Native plants are wonderful, and each of us in our won little corner of the world, can and should do the best we possible can to preserve them.
Very beautiful!
Show the slope Josephine! It is to die for...
Fielder House and the gardens... show the rest.
The Slope in January 2006.
We started the wildflowers in 1998 with just a few packtes of seed.
The slope was covered with grass which we cut very short in the fall, and scattered the seeds on it.
Very few grew that year, but as time went by we were able to add more seed and plants, at this time there is a solid cover of wildflower plants, most of them perennials. The grass is all gone now.
I wish we had been able to document the progress through the years, but we got our digital camera just last year.
I will try to document the growth starting this year.
I started by cutting down all the plants by hand. It took about nine hours of work, all squatting down, so it is nor easy. Of course I didn't do it all in one session, it took five sessions, but I got it done.
The plants, a large mountain of them, were shreded for mulch or compost.
The slope is 10 by 80 feet and it faces south, so it requires watering once or twice a week during the growing season.
Here is a picture of what it looks like now.
O.K. here is the link to Landscaping .com right here on DG.
http://landscaping.com/ls/view/65/
That's amazing & so pretty!
I am telling you this is one of the Native plant greats in the world.... she can make anything native grow I really believe.
No no, just plain old love, hard work, stubbornness, and lots of luck.
If you say so... really one of these days I will get there and have a place like that where so many things grow all together in such a mix.
Mitch, I will come and help you get started when you get settled in your new home.
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Angele do you have a slope in your yard too?
:-) Thank you, I have so much to learn going just one zone colder!
Yes, it will be a whole new experience, and some of the Texas plants will not be native in Oklahoma, but I think a lot of them will work, we will have to look into that.
Yes, Josephine I have a slope, I was struck by how much mine looks like yours. Of course mine is in the before stage, I started a diary entry on my yard this morning. Today I took an inventory of the front yard and tomorrow I was planning on doing the side with the slope.. I have a corner lot. Mine faces northwest, lots of late afternoon sun. You have clay I have sand. I even have a row of Indian Hawthorn shrubs behind the slope (they are to be replaced with something native), then a section that is flat up by the house maybe 8' x 35'. That used to be lawn but is just the bare sand now.. all ready to be planted with something.
Angele, you are so lucky, the sand won't be half as hard to work as the clay.
Be sure to add plenty of leaves compost or any other organic material you have on hand, the sand drains way too fast, and with your climate you want to be able to keep the moisture as long as possible.
Are you also an organic gardener?
You have such a great opportunity with such a clean canvass, it is always exciting to plan something and see it come to fruition.
Do as much research as possible and don't try to do it all at once, you probably won't be able to find all the the plants you want right away, but the search is a lot of fun.
Josephine.
You are so kind to call me a gardener, yes I do thing organically. Removing our lawn was only half the work because we had lots of help from grubs. Ok, that wasn't intentional but seriously because of the birds, butterflies & all of nature I don't use store bought chemicals in my yard. I was very fond of a praying mantis that spent almost all of last summer & fall on a russian sage plant in my yard. She did a lot of insect control for me. I mostly use just water and poop. LOL, I sometimes bring home rabbit droppings from my hikes. The rabbits eat from the prickly pear cactus and since they take their time munching there are nice little piles of treasures for my garden. I don't have a compost pile but do use waste from the kitchen to feed the soil; eggshells get a good soaking in a five gallon pail of water, things like that. I'm hoping to find lots of plants that like lean sandy soil though. I have a list of 64 from the wildflower.org site
I'm not political about this stuff it is just the way I've always done things. I guess it started with my mom who asked me to bring home cow poop for her roses if I happened to see any while I was out playing when I was a kid. I was very happy to oblige.
All this talk about slopes and clean slates - I just had to show you this. It was taken September 2004. We're still struggling with the slope behind the house. Between gophers, the heat (south slope), and I've been told damage caused by grading, very few plants have survived. Last year we lost a three foot ceanothus for no obvious reason. The arctostaphylos are coming into their own now, though, and some of the low-growing ceanothus is gaining ground. Still, one plant will thrive, while the one next to it looks like the day it was planted - one gallon size. We did mulch, but it slides right off the slope. Very frustrating.
However, looking at the photos from before the grading, it's amazing what we have now in such a short time! DH put in a pond, and some of our plantings have been very successful It's a far cry from the weed-covered lot we started with. :-)
Kathleen
Kathleen! That sure is steep but it looks like you've got a foothold now. When I was a kid we lived in Southern California and had a backyard like that. My mom terraced it herself. I don't know how the woman did things like that.
I wanted to terrace it, but DH just wouldn't do it, and I can't. It's still quite bare considering how many plants we've thrown at it. Step-by-step, though, we'll make it better. I was sure glad when he put that pond in, 'cause it takes up a whole bunch of dirt! Your mom sounds like mine - well-acquainted with her friend "persy" (perseverance).
Wow! that is a really steep slope, how do you keep it from washing down with the rains?
Angele, I went and looked at your diary, and wow! what a terrific opportunity you have there, it is going to be beautiful.
Which kind of tree is that in your front yard? It looks very interesting.
And did you do your inventory yet?
Josephine.
It is a Dwarf Catalpa but it has been just about killed by a freeze. The trunk split. We had an arborist out to look at it and he said it really was a goner. I entered it in plantfiles a couple of years ago.. if you click on the second picture you can even see the lawn, lol.
http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/go/78875/
I've inventoried my front yard (it is in that diary entry) and was planning on doing the side today but the weather is yucky.
Wow! that is one thick leafed tree, I imagine you can't grow much under it, it is a shame you have to take it out, but it will give you a chance to plant something more open.
Was that a kitty or a doggie that i saw under it?
We do have erosion problems, Josephine, but not on that slope, interestingly. To begin with, the inspectors required 85% coverage before we could move into our house, so we had it hydroseeded with California wildflowers (spring). Then we planted (summer), and then we had weeds (fall and spring). I got the weeds somewhat under control and now we only have mulch coming down. I water by hand except for an occasional overhead shower to water-in weed suppressant or wash the plants off in summer (they don't like dust). One of our projects is a retaining wall, but it hasn't worked its way up the priority list yet.
Angele, we have planted chitalpa trees - cross between Catalpa bignonioides and Chilopsis linearis - they are lovely.
Holy moley! That is really a shade tree!
