On Saturday, the town environmental commission was giving away free bare-root native trees at the library! We were deciding between a red maple or a black cherry, and in the end I picked the cherry. Hopefully it likes its new home in the front yard - it's currently protected by chicken wire around a tomato cage, but will need some better anti-deer protection as it goes.
Last year's new garden addition is waking up! Most of the plants seem to have come back, which is a good sign.
To my surprise, the portion of the slope by the pond where I previously solarized and scattered seeds has finally generated some plants! That's the section with fresh mulch below. So far, it's mostly bee balm, with one anisse hyssop. No sign yet of the Joe Pye weed, coneflower, or whatever the other seed I threw down was. Granted, I had read that in wildflower terms, in year 1 they sleep, year 2 they creep, and year 3 they leap. So we're in the "creep" year. I decided to start solarizing the patch next to that, and this fall I'll repeat the process for winter sowing. I'm reluctant to do anything to the other side, because from there to the end of the pond is the milkweed patch. I've toyed with the idea of inserting some sort of physical barrier to make it look neater, but at the end of the day, I do need to be able to run through with the lawnmower at the start of the spring. Plus, I'd rather not insert anything plastic into the ground, which is what most inexpensive garden "fences" are made of.
The best part? We can't actually see this slope from inside the house, so we don't have to stare at plastic for six months!
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