More Mulch…

It seemed as though the mulching would never end.  That’s what happens when you are dealing with a huge new garden area with no grass, four new planting beds and a bunch of mud.  It takes a lot of mulch to cover all that area.  We started back in June with the first huge trailer load.  My whole family came to help unload it.  That first load covered the big hill bed almost all the way and the shady corner.  After two more loads from Mama’s truck, we were left with a bit of the hill, the creekbank bed, and the left side bed.  So, once again my family all came to help and John brought another trailer full of mulch two weeks ago.  Don’t I have the best family?  I just ask and they appear with work gloves and wheelbarrows and trailers!  :)  Yay Guthrie Power!

Since I had already taken pictures of Guthrie Family workday 1, I skipped that part on workday 2.  So all we have are the after pictures! 

What is with all these leaves!  I did not order those! :)  Also the bushes are looking kind of dead-ish.  I’m giving them a chance to recover before I pronounce them.

While we were at it, we replaced the tiny cherry tree on the corner with a corkscrew willow tree that Mama got on sale at Lowes.  The pretty flower in front of it is cleome.  There are two of those on this side and they are blooming like crazy!

The creekbank bed needs more flowers, but at least it has mulch now!

In other creek news, Mama rebuilt her tiny dam and it is trickling merrily now.  Hope it doesn’t wash away again!  We also cut back a bunch of branches over the creek.  I tried out my new rain boots in the water and they are swell.  It was fun splashing in the creek and cleaning up a bit. 

This is the opposite corner by the creek.  It’s what we call “the mound” which was basically a pile of weeds/dirt/roots that was left after we cleared the land.  It’s eventually going to settle into a flat spot, or so I’m told. ;)  For now we are just hacking down the weeds and planting in front of it.  I’m also piling corn stalks on top.  It’s very picturesque. :)  I’m planning to put a compost bin here on top, just to add to the attractiveness. :)

This view is looking back toward the willow tree.  The corn didn’t do very well, and a lot of it was eaten by the deer.  I did get a few really good ears, but most of them were small and poorly pollinated, so hopefully I will do better next year!  Despite my efforts to keep them away, the deer also ate all of my tomatoes.  Boo!  I did get a few jalapenos and bell peppers… guess deer don’t eat those. :)

This is the lily and forsythia bed on the left side.  We are eventually going to add more to this bed, maybe some roses or some more crape myrtles.  We’ll see…

The lily bed runs up and meets with the shady corner.  The mulch basically loops the entire border of our property down here.

And in the middle we have the island which has a pink weigela bush (pronounced why-gee-la) and some butterfly bushes.  We are also going to add a couple blueberry bushes on the other side of the birdhouse.  The birds will love that, right? 

Back up the hill the mulch is finally finished.  We still need to finish our little rock bed around the tree and add some plants! I’m thinking some creeping phlox.

After all the mulch was unloaded the men drilled holes in my steps and pounded in rebar so they won’t be falling down the hill.  We have a bunch more steps to set now, too.  Stay tuned for that.

Our next project down here is to tear out the garden (which is spent, except for the tomatoes, which are just being eaten by the deer) and till everything!   Then we are going to plant grass for the lawn and rye in the garden.  Still lots of work but at least the mulching is done!  (For a while…)  Okay, stay tuned!