Organizing Rocks

A good friend said she was ready to do something with her landscape and would I come do it. What do you want to do, I asked. I don't know, she said. Something. Anything. I probed a little and got nothing. I'll come by and have a look and we can talk about what you want to do.

I was handed a big check shortly after I arrived, before any discussion really, and told, give me this amount of pretty. Do whatever you want.

Well I knew that the money and enthusiasm had run out when the house was finished being built. The landscape is most often the loser in this situation. Some trees and shrubs got planted and that was that. The interior is flawless.

What I saw was a boulder strewn site that had never gotten any finish prep work to prepare for a garden.

The first thing that had to be done was to organize all the rocks scattered around the site and lined up in loose rows and heaped in piles. Even a rock garden would have better arranged rocks than this rubble field of boulders.

So I started moving rocks.

Lining them up in neater rows and getting rid of the excess.

Because things like the hideous fake plastic rock

Might look a little better with some company. It still needs a bush to help.

Paths were made.

Retaining walls were knocked down and rebuilt so they would retain things.

And much to my horror there was heavy duty construction plastic under the entire front bed.

People! DO NOT DO THIS AT HOME! It does not prevent weeds. They will grow right on top of the plastic in the mulch you hide it with. You will still have plenty of weeds. All plastic does is create an air and water barrier between the soil and all life processes the soil needs to be healthy. Your plant's roots will hate this. It is not good. Not good at all.

Landscape fabric that is supposed to be breathable is only slightly less horrible. Weeds will grow right on top of your landscape fabric too.

The idea of putting plastic and fabric into planting beds to prevent weeds is the most horrible lie foisted on the gardening public in the last several decades. Just don't do it.

Another bed was needed on the left side of the house.

And I had access to plenty of rocks. Now the redbud tree won't be sitting all alone in the middle of the grassy slope.

It's almost ready for some new flowers and shrubberies. Next comes compost and mulch.

When I was leaving for the day, something small and pink caught my eye on the slope along the lower drive. I had never seen a violet that color before.

That's no violet. The business parts look very orchid like. Is this another native orchid? There were hundreds of them blooming across this slope.

I started searching when I got home and could put the picture on the computer so I could see it better. No it is not an orchid. This is Fringed Polygala or Gay Wings, Polygala paucifolia. It is a rhizomatous perennial native to north eastern North America ranging down to the mountains of Georgia.

Of course you know some of it fell out of the ground and followed me home.