It Is Done

Almost, always almost.

You just know the plumbing repair had a drip. I refused to tighten it one more spin. I was not going to be having another busted part. The pipe dope will just have to set and the rust and dirt can plug the drip. I need water when the kitties visit next door for Christmas.

I'm supposed to burn up all the rubbish Sister #2 is making in her land clearing in the back 40 for more turnip fields. It isn't really a top of the list item. I might get to it if the weather and boredom cooperate.

Winter is no where to be found at this point. It's freaking me out. If it doesn't show up after the new year, I may just keep working. The Posh Estate and another garden I tend that is going to be on the master gardener tour next year need fresh mulch. It is amazing how fast that stuff decomposes. I may start mulching early if we are not going to be having winter.

I did finish the last of my Silver Lamium spraying for this year. The warm temperatures we are having will aid in the killing process. The foreground of this picture was covered in lamium two years ago. Over in the top left is the last island of lamium left in the ridge top garden. I did spray the top edge of it. The rest of it may go next year.

The garden stretches farther than the eye can see in both directions from where this shot was taken. The lamium was well on its way to covering the entire mountain top before I put a halt to it.

I started moving gravel when my chores next door were done. I added another inch to three quarters of the patio. When that was done I tossed the bricks around.

I had to test out Glitter Bricks.

The Glitter Bricks did have a certain appeal. Interesting. I just thought it was too random and informal for the strong formal structure of the basement patio. There will be no Glitter Bricks.

The decision was made. The bricks were sunk into the gravel. I can change my mind anytime I like. I don't see that happening unless I get struck by a vision. That can happen.

Tomorrow I will go rock hunting to do some touch up on the top of the lower wall. A couple of buckets of dung will be put in the planting pocket. Rain is scheduled for tomorrow night into Monday to wash the dust off the bricks and gravel. That will make the bricks pop a little more than they do now.

All the basement patio needs now is a table and some chairs. I wonder if I could find a red and brown mix of polished glass mulch. A little glitter might not be so bad after all.

Traffic Jam

Oh the places you'll go. Or not. Traffic came to a halt on the scenic byway late this afternoon. The sign said paint. I could have sworn I saw the paint go by weeks ago. There was brand new paint on the brand new road at the exact starting point of the Kingdom of Madison last time I looked. They were up to something.

The really big surprise for the day was the crew picking up trash this morning all the way up top. I didn't see them walk by earlier and they were not that far below when I passed them. Do they know I keep the last half mile picked up and skip it? I should have an honorary sign.

The traffic jam extended to the roadside vegetable garden. It didn't quite reach my driveway. It was a little early for rush hour.

The grasses in the front bed have freeze dried perfectly this year without getting squashed by a heavy snow. They are standing straight and tall and will last the winter, growing more tattered with each storm, until I cut them down in late March.

I wandered around a bit before dark. I still have one surviving cold hardy camellia growing back from the stump. Whatever. There is no reason to dig it up or put it out of my misery, but there really is no point in having an evergreen shrub that is going to be killed to the ground every few years and have to start over from scratch.

I have some plumbing repairs to attend to and then I think I will spend some more quality time in the basement patio this weekend. I'm going to add a few more wheelbarrow loads of gravel and check my grade. It is time to hide the remaining landscape fabric that separated the soil from the gravel back fill of the dry stack stone wall.

I also want to do a little touch up work on the top of the stone wall to give it a more uniform appearance.

The planting pocket gets dung. I will play with the bricks one more time. Then a decision is going to be made and they will be sunk into the gravel. Sunk, not cemented. I can change my mind anytime.

Next year I will be joining the beasts as they lounge on the basement patio catching the last rays of sunshine.

Piles

Someone is digging big holes in my fresh dung pile. My best guess would be the resident possum, who I suspect is the same varmint digging holes in the Great Lawn and the roadside vegetable garden. The dung pile is chock full of earthworms. I'm sure they are a very tasty snack.

I have far more dung than I have the time and energy to screen the gravel out of. Instead of moving it, I've decided to just make a vegetable garden annex. I'm just going to shovel it all flat and turn this space into a garden. This will be the squash and melon department.

I have half a pile of gravel left to move. I need to do some measuring and level checking in the basement patio before I spread the rest of it around to more clearly define the parking lot. Some kind of visual border between the parking lot and the vegetable garden annex would be nice.

I'm tired of looking at this pile of collectibles. The wood stored in there is probably long since turned rotten. I was going to build a little shed with it, so I had a place to put the collectibles. I need a little shed. I can do it. The hardest part is getting started.

There is a pile of sticks and branches in the fire pit ready to burn. There are more piles of sticks out in the garden. The forest sheds a lot of crap when the wind blows. There are piles of sticks and branches all over the wild cultivated gardens and even bigger piles just over the county line. I don't rake leaves. I have more than enough sticks to pick up.

I have piles of things all over the place. There are of piles of dirty laundry and piles of clean laundry. I currently have a big pile of picture frames in my little living room for the upcoming art show. All these piles are calling for my attention.

I have not been back down to the basement patio in days. I need to make a decision on my bricks. I need to measure and contemplate what kind of table and chairs to get. Does it need any more gravel? Good thing this is a winter long project.

Randomness

Miss Dinah on a post dinner excursion. The weather has been nice enough this week for some quality outdoor time during the day. That makes for much better nights of sleep for me.

What will it be? I know a window like this with the words to Imagine painted on the panes. It may need to become something in time for the working basement patio. It is my belief, the windows I have came from the house my grandfather built.

Half of the city of Waynesville as seen from above. A view like this really puts the mountains of WNC into perspective.

Killing Silver Lamium

A just above freezing, full sunny morning lit up the grasses and dried remnants of the Tall Flower Meadow. It promised something would be accomplished today. I have a list.

An old dead apple tree finally fell down. It needs to be dismantled. It wasn't on the top of the list though.

The top of the list was plumbing repairs at the well head. A galvanized metal T that branched out to a collection of hose bibs that distribute water out to the garden had cracked. It had to be replaced.

My big hope was that the third attempt at repair would be the charm. That was not to be. In the first attempt, I had a bad thread on a hose bib. It wouldn't seat properly and go in. The next two attempts at putting the collection of hose bibs back together resulted in drips. When I tried to tighten the drip away, something else broke. I would need another part from the store. I would not be driving to the store now. It could wait until I went to town tomorrow, again.

I wanted water at the house next door to make some Roundup. An above freezing, full sunny day was perfect for the killing I had in mind.

I had to make do by filling my sprayer while draining the system and then a trip next door for a second batch. I was going to kill me some Silver Lamium, Lamium galeobdolon, today. That was my other top of the list.

This ground cover has proven to be horribly invasive in the ridge top garden. If I had not started killing it off four years ago, the entire mountain top would be covered in a densely rooted, impenetrable mat. Bulbarella could not dig through it easily and kept expanding the garden ahead of the onslaught. I am much to busy for her garden to be getting bigger.

The good news is the lamium is pretty much an evergreen. Once all her desired plants went to sleep for the winter and before the bulbs woke up, I could spray the lamium without too much worry of collateral damage.

The results have been most gratifying. When Bulbarella returns in the spring she sees lamium free bare ground that needs planting. Garden expansion has slowed to a trickle. Infill is now keeping her quite busy. There has also been an explosion in the number of minor bulbs like crocus, chionodoxa, puschkinia and scilla that bloom in the spring. Pushing through the dense mat of lamium roots and rising above the foliage for the required sunlight was more than these small bulbs could handle. Less lamium equals more spring bulbs.

Beebalm has also returned to the ridge top garden in abundance after withering away to almost nothing. Getting rid of the lamium will be beneficial for all kinds of wild flowers.

I missed this patch. I'll need to plan another mission for a warmish sunny day.

Killing silver lamium was the only real chore on my list that I accomplished today. I did stroll the ridge top garden twice and picked up lots of sticks as I went. I chatted with a gun toting hunter across the county line on the first trip. I was under the impression that was verboten on Sundays.

I took the resident beasts for a walk on the second visit. We need to do that more often, but it is close to dark by the time I get home these days.

I told myself I would make more of an effort to help out in the ridge top garden next year. That is easier said than done. I have my own garden expansion plans. (hmfp ... mhpf)

Between the two of us we are at three acres and counting of wild cultivated gardens. I need some semblance of tidy to make my maintenance gardener self happy. It is just hard to get to it all with one day a week and evenings in the growing season.

Persistence does pay off. I have nearly eliminated my nemesis, the Clematis virginiana, in an acre and a half of meadow. That will leave more time for the ridge top garden. Give me a couple more years and the lamium will only remain in a couple locations where we let it live.

Permanent Frost

There have three mornings of frost inducing, much needed, upper twenty degree freezes following the last round of rain. It has been warm enough until now that I have seen daffodils poking up in a few of the gardens I tend. There has been a definite need for a signal that winter has yet to arrive. A lot of plants were getting confused.

The highs have been reaching fifty, which isn't really a good thing, but in the day long shadow of the mountain, the frost and frozen across the byway remains all day. The Posh Estate lives in a cold shadow like this. It makes working there rather chilly at this time of year.

I have been in that chilled to the bone transition phase. My body needs time to adapt as well. It might be fifty degrees, but a penetrating cold hovers, adrift, released from the ground like an invisible fog.

I am lucky that the cold mountain shadow doesn't quite reach the cozy cabin. I still get a solar heating assist for half of the day. Half the garden enjoys a melting sun. The other half chills in the shadow.

My cold bones need to adjust. I have a list of chores that need doing here and at least two more weeks of steady work to get the client's gardens cleaned up for winter and ready for spring. My chilled bones keep finding reasons for abbreviated work days.

I look at my garden from above, enjoying the baby low mounding tapestry of evergreen texture and color of the winter under garden, more than I have wandered through for a closer inspection.

I have been adding grasses to the mix for their winter texture. They are still small, but I am thinking they need the dried carcasses of other herbaceous perennials for the best effect. I will try to remember that next year when the chop and drop begins.

Two Days Later

The NCDOT showed up to deposit a blob of asphalt in the ungraveled and shallowest slice of the rut in front of my mailbox. This morning they were doing major repairs where a section of the scenic byway was getting ready to collapse. They must have had some leftovers when they came back to fetch the work sign they parked in front of my house.

It had rained a lot harder than I was aware of. There were all kinds of dirt, gravel and leaf wash outs along the road and several places where water was crossing the road long after the rain had stopped. My gravel stayed put. That meant my trenching and diversion efforts were a success.

Why did the NCDOT have to go and ugly up the fresh road repair I had so kindly done for them? I mean really, was it worth the effort for that piddly amount of asphalt?

An ugly blob of asphalt wasn't the worst of the repairs the DOT did in front of my house today. Are you frickin kidding me? They dug two huge, side by side trenches across the road shoulder to channel runoff water straight down into my garden from a sunken section of the byway.

I have driven every mile of the scenic byway more times than I can count. Not once have I ever seen water diverted off the road like this. This is a completely unauthorized and highly irresponsible repair method. I strenuously object. I will not be having a huge gully cut into and through my garden.

One hard rain is all you get. At the first sign of gully making those trenches will be filled back in.

There was a perfectly fine, fully functioning gully thirty feet down the road and below my property line already. Look what they did to that. They filled it in, covered it over and regraded the whole shoulder. I better put some grass seed on it or it won't be that way for long.

I had even lined the gully with all of the asphalt chunks the snow plow had been scraping off the road that didn't come flying down into the garden. They didn't even need to add rip rap rock. There was a working gully already. Why couldn't they just use that one?

No, they're going to make a new gully further up the road where that dark spot from the two huge trenches they dug is.

There will be no gully running through my garden. I promise you that. I will fill in your new trenches as many times as I have to if needed. No. No. No. JUST NO. I will not have it.

The DOT crews patrol this road on a very consistent basis. I actually give them credit for doing a good job in keeping a failing state highway open and passable. I'd be even happier if they picked up the trash. But I do that job in addition to my road repair work.

It simply is not possible for the amount of time they spend rubbernecking on this byway to think it is in any way acceptable to run a gully through my garden. The signs are obvious. This section of byway is of high scenic value. Don't mess it up!

In Dry Spots And Drizzle

It was not raining when I woke up. That was a surprise. The plan was for rain all day with a flood warning. The radar did indicate an imminent arrival. There wasn't much time for me to be nice before the mail was delivered.

I got busy moving wheelbarrow loads gravel all the way up to the top of my driveway to fill in the deep rut in front of my mailbox. A couple of years ago I cemented in the rut that was forming where my gravel driveway met the road. The torrent of water that left the road in heavy rains at my driveway then proceeded to dig a hole in front of the mailbox with an auto assist no doubt.

All that water dug a trench about twenty feet long in front of the mailbox before hopping back on the highway, running eighty feet down the road then exiting again where it dug a big gully below my property line. Not my gully. I didn't care.

I do hope all that gravel stays put. Some adjustments were made to aid that possibility.

Water is the real problem. The decrepit highway has lost any pitch it once had. Add in a snowplow building grit and gravel berms along the edges every winter and escape routes for water become concentrated.

I did some trenching to direct water from above into the culvert under my driveway and cut a big drain hole in the dirt berm below the fence by the mailbox. That could run a significantly larger amount of water through the garden. In hard downpours, I already had a river running from the culvert beneath the driveway.

We are under a flood warning. I will find out soon enough if the trenching worked and if the gravel will stay put. I did get a thank you note from the mail carrier. That makes me less annoyed by the whole thing.

I was one load short of satisfaction when the rain began. Hours later it tapered down to a drizzle. I added one more wheelbarrow full and went for a short stroll in the garden.

My first planted Yucca filamentosa are getting big. They don't get taller, just fuller.

The cracked pots become more of a focal point in the barren time. This slow wet descent into winter has been very good for the grasses. They are standing tall and bleaching out nicely.

I still have green in the Great Lawn and some of the paths to go with the color from the evergreens of the under garden.

The winter leaf of the native orchid, Putty Root, Aplectrum hyemale has arrived. This orchid is very abundant in the wild cultivated gardens. It blooms in mid-summer after the leaf has withered away making it a bit hard to find in the Lush. I know where to look now.

One heiau becoming is outlined in the leaf litter.

Creation waits for the first defining snow. All that moss growing on the rocks has the effect of absorbing it into what little vegetation remains in the winter. It is a natural process I am trying to make peace with. I don't want Creation to disappear into a future discovery until after I am gone.