Nancy's question yesterday led to a picture walk around our five-acre homestead in hopes of providing some answers.
Our land was choked with brush and cactus when we arrived in 2010, much like this undisturbed back corner ...
We have spent the past eight years clearing brush in hopes of encouraging the return of native prairie grasses such as little bluestem, sideoats grama, and yellow Indiangrass, with much success. It has all been done with hand-held tools (clippers and loppers), no herbicides ever ...
The debris is then put in rows of compost that act as berms to slow flood waters along vulnerable areas ...
plus a cover of dead leaves, grass and/or wood mulch to keep things dark and damp ...
After a couple of years (we are patient), we take off the dried-out cover, put that at the bottom of a new compost pile and congratulate ourselves on the resulting soil (hard to see, but there's a 2-3" mound of soil here) ...
The rock gardens are in closer to the house and Don's current project involves taking away all the brush from a rocky area ...
while leaving desirable plants like this thimble flower and mealy blue sage undisturbed ...
unearthing loose rock for a planting bed ...
that can be filled with GeoGrower's Thunder Soil ...
then planting natives (here a bush germander) ...
and finishing the whole thing off with a covering of GeoGrower's Magic Mulch ...
plus the occasional wire cage as needed because deer-resistant doesn't mean the critters won't take a taste at times ...
Needless to say, there's a lot of sweat equity in our landscape, but what's good for the garden is good for the gander (not to mention the goose).
