Tag: mulching
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Terra Foundation Grant: Removing Existing Turf, Part 2. What I did, where I did it, and why.
Reminder: I’m doing a series of posts over probably the next two months or so on the Terra Foundation Grant I received in April of this year. “The Terra Foundation Residential Grant provides $1,000 for native plant material to install a new garden where turf has been removed in a home landscape. The Terra Foundation…
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Terra Foundation Grant: Removing Existing Turf, Part 1. Why and How.
Reminder: I’m doing a series of posts over probably the next two months or so on the Terra Foundation Grant I received in April of this year. “The Terra Foundation Residential Grant provides $1,000 for native plant material to install a new garden where turf has been removed in a home landscape. The Terra Foundation…
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Introducing… the Terra Foundation Grant
Note: I wrote this post in April, shortly before I started doing full-time propagation work at a local nursery and filling most of my remaining free time with gardening to fulfill this grant. I’m not going to change the verb tenses. I am at the point now, at the end of September, where I can…
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Failures and Victories, Part 3: Living Mulch
This is the third post in a series on landscaping failures and victories at home. Earlier posts covered hardscapes and beds, berms, and swales. I’m a huge fan of landscape designer Benjamin Vogt. I encourage you to check out his website and to peruse his book Prairie Up. In a nutshell, Vogt’s aesthetic is about…
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What’s with all those leaf bags? Part 3: soil health.
I said in the last Pollinator Post that the main point of amending with compost isn’t to add nutrients for plants; it’s to support soil health, water infiltration, soil texture, and soil structure. Let’s get into that. Soil health is “the continued capacity of soil to function as a vital living ecosystem that sustains plants,…
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What are all those leaf bags about? Part 1: show me the money.
Anyone walking by our home can see a stacked row of kraft yard waste bags against the north side. Recently, an entrepreneurial fellow stopped by to ask if we would like to pay him to haul them away. Maybe now is a good time to start to explain. I am a master composter. I studied…
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The Problem with Landscape Fabric
Weeds are a problem. (Clearly I know this–I have visible weeds and am often visibly weeding.) However, landscape fabric is not the solution. This “fabric” as used in the residential landscape is usually spun polypropylene, a petroleum product which will never decompose. It is often laid over bare soil or over undesired landscaping treated with…
Climate Resilient Landscapes 