Posts Tagged ‘ground cover’
Grass Gripe
While I have been toiling to prepare the dirt along our driveway and in the back pasture for grass seed, one thought keeps going through my mind. We are working hard to nurture grass seeds to germinate. 
Preparing the soil, distributing the seeds, raking the seeds into the dirt, spreading straw over the top, and watering the area in an effort to establish a carpet of green where previously there was none.
Meanwhile, grass has grown in front of our hay shed despite a total lack of effort from us to make that happen.
Over and over yesterday while raking, my mind reviewed the unlikely fact that grass seed falling from baled hay lands on the hardened gravel drive. The soil wasn’t prepared for seeds. We never watered that area. It gets too much sun. Vehicles drive over it. We don’t want grass to grow there.
Despite all the reasons grass should not sprout there, it has done so with unbelievable effectiveness.
It’s just plain wacky. It’s an imbalance in the universe. It defies logic.
Don’t mind me, that’s just a little grass gripe I harbor. Let’s end this post on a more positive note. How about a photogenic ground cover in the rocks just beyond our front steps?
Add to that a shot of the golden sunset Cyndie captured the other day:
Beautiful, no?
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Another Transplant
The woods up around our lake place are replete with the white and purple blossoms of wild trillium, which is such a beautiful sight. Just before we left to drive home yesterday, Cyndie’s nephew, Beck, helped her dig up a few of the plants for us to bring home. We hope to seed our woods for a shot at a similar magical landscape down here in a few years.
We tried to minimize the hours they were out of the ground by getting them planted as quickly as possible after we got home.
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I noticed in the second picture there is a worm, which is unfortunate, since, as I recently wrote, they are not trillium’s friend, because they consume the duff layer of decaying leaves and rob the soil of nutrients. I’m hoping our situation is not that extreme yet, and the two can coexist for some time.
I was so excited about the new plantings that I forgot to go check how the recently transplanted maple tree is getting along. Now we have two areas that I will be anxiously observing for signs of success.
There is such a variety of growth that springs forth in our woods every year, we are hopeful that our attempt to add trillium to it all will be met with success and the wonderful beauties will begin propagating unassisted in years to come.
Wish us luck!
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Image Option
There are times that I discover I have no story to tell when I sit down to write a post for the day, and frequently those occasions produce poems. Today I’ve got neither. That’s not unprecedented. I have been known to pull out a 3rd option when words come up short. A photo fills in nicely. I recently captured our Lamium purple dragon perennial ground cover with lingering flowers maintaining color amid the encroaching brown of fallen tree leaves. It does well to depict the straddling of seasons currently on display within our landscape. I like how the shadows at the bottom produce hints of dragon-like shapes.
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Relative Something 