Well, the place in my backyard between my driveway and the neighbour's garage, and under very shading maple trees got a small two brick high wall put up last fall, and filled with good earth, then I just left the leaves on as they fell.
Then a few days ago I picked out all the little baby maple sprouts - hundreds and HUNDREDS of baby maple sprouts - and gave the soil a bit of loosening.
I went to Cambridge this weekend to visit the grandboys, and took a big baking pan full of damp earth and stopped in the woods on the way there, where I had seen woodland violets, dogtoothed violets and May Apples last year, took out my handy garden trowel, and set about getting some for my garden space.
Boy, have I been in the city too long!! My trowel promptly broke on the network of roots and rocks close under the soil. BAH!
Before I left Cambridge I wheedled an old shovel from my s-i-l, and off I went for a second try. Of course it poured rain all that day, so there I was, out shovelling in the rain, and spent the rest of the trip home with my hair dripping down the back of my neck.
But I got a few things. Some woodland violets which seem to be settling in very well, and three May apples which I'm keeping my fingers crossed about. There was frost last night, so I think maybe that didn't help the settling situation. I had also gotten a few dog toothed violets, but they got buried in soil as I drove and things settled, so hoping they might poke up - if not this year, then next.
I'd love to find some jack-in-the-pulpit too, but haven't seen any, and will get some Trillium from the garden centre as they're protected and I can't dig them up.
And I also got a distance picture of the robin family that has nested on top of my security lights at the back door. Can't wait for the babies to hatch, and I hope all goes well, as she's already lost one egg to the *%#!! starlings.
