On to the Front Wall
Moving on to the front wall.
We bought a leaf rake this week. We didn’t have any tools when we moved into our new house, and we’re slowly rebuilding our collection whenever we need something to do a job.
This week we began working on the south border of the front yard. This kind of happened by accident. You see, I’ve slowly identifying the plants in our yard. So far I’ve been shrub and flowering plant obsessed, but this week I looked up at the trees. I mean, that was mainly because there were birds in them, but also because it’s nice to look at trees. I learned that we have a couple of mulberry trees. Their placement makes me think they were planted intentionally because they sort of frame the house. I’m always nervous about trees near the house, and James and I did a little morning investigation. This led to a pretty significant discovery. One of the mulberry trees is in the little grove on the south border of our front yard. It includes what I thought were a pair of small crepe myrtles, but they’re not. They’re privets.
I’ve been pulling up lots of little privets in the backyard, and we have a pretty large one nestled under our old willow oak back there. I’ve even cut new growth off a stump of a privet growing in front of a climbing rose in the north part of the front yard. That one will be getting a hole full of gardening vinegar soon. But back to the south border of the front yard. After some investigating, it turns out that we have another large and two smaller (but not sapling-sized) privets in that area. It’s an interesting spot along the property line. It doesn’t look exactly bad, but it’s not great, either. It’s overgrown but rather natural looking. It’s just that the things that have thrived there without attention are mostly either invasive or aggressive, like privets or wild grape and English ivy and other assorted vines. I was all for leaving it alone until James pointed out that there’s no need to keep what we don’t want. So we got the branch trimmers and the battery-powered chainsaw my father gave us, and we cut down the two smaller privets. And cut back the vines growing on the mulberry tree and as ground cover.
With the clutter cleared, I realized how cool the holly tree at the edge of the sidewalk is. It got a little love that day. We also found a rose bush we didn’t know existed. It’ll get a pruning when the time is right, and I can’t wait to see its color next spring. Oh, and there are way more hostas there than we realized. They were buried under vines and dead leaves. So now we’ve added another project to the list, and that project requires a rake. We’re going to work to clean up that little grove and let what’s already there really shine. Of course that includes the garden wall. It’s going to be slow going because I don’t want to disturb existing plants that we want to keep, but I cannot wait to see that wall in its full glory.
