UPDATED with Week 2 Photos:
I’d mentioned in the original story below that I would post weekly photos, but unfortunately, I was sick all last week and didn’t take any Week 1 photos. I’m now defaulting to bi-weekly updates which will show more obvious progress (or lack thereof).
As seen in the below photos, the grass and mini clover are growing the most in the areas where my sister and I spread topsoil to smooth out the deepest depressions. It’s been raining every few days, and the highs have been in the upper 70s so I can’t blame the weather for the rather sad gallery of “green saucers.”
It’s only been two weeks, and I’m patient. The remainder of the surface area just isn’t an ideal growing medium, whatever it is. If it isn’t too hot and humid this weekend, I’ll fill and haul big sacks of horse manure compost from my neighbor and top dress the area. That should spark new and thicker grass growth.
In any event, I’ll be re-seeding in late September. I’m hoping for complete grass coverage by Halloween.
PREVIOUSLY:
Area: A row of mature trees, predominately maple, that runs north-south along a stone wall, and the area underneath their canopy
Dimensions: 300’ L x 33’ W (9,900 square feet, a bit shy of a quarter acre [one acre = 43,560 square feet])
Goal(s): To reveal the trees’ full grandeur once again (after having a tree expert limb low-hanging branches very subtly, under my supervision last year), re-grow grass beneath their canopy, and re-establish a site line of open, “rolling green” space from various vantage points on the property
Challenge(s): Removing by hand extensive plant debris and live growth left behind by a landscaper hired to clear this area; the sheer size of the area; somewhat uneven terrain; selecting the right grass/groundcover for the mostly shady location
Effort Level: 1 2 3 4 5
Time Commitment: 1 2 3 4 5
Buried in Debris: Using Big Machines Isn’t Always the Best Landscaping Choice
Below is a photo of a small portion of the area, taken in April 2018, after a landscaper had cleared it and before we began to finish the job by hand. Dormant burning bush and other unwanted growth still obscure the stone wall and the bases of the trees. I don’t know if a photo can represent accurately how much debris the landscaper’s machinery created and how it acted as unwanted mulch.
I’d wanted to restore Maple Tree Row for well over five years, but other things somehow always took precedence. Quite frankly, I also didn’t want to clear 9,900 square feet by hand. So I hired a landscaper whose big machinery left behind inches of debris: broken branches (a few inches to a few feet long), smaller tree trunks not entirely detached from the ground, etc. He claimed that it would decompose so that I could then plant grass, which I’d stated was a time-sensitive priority.
In fact, two years later, nothing much was growing except for the brush that his machine missed and nothing much appeared to be decomposing. It didn’t look good, and I wasn’t happy. The photo below was taken in early May 2018. You can see where the “leaf litter” hasn’t stopped the hayfield from growing, whereas a wide swath from the stone wall is almost barren. This is where so many cut branches blanketed the ground.
In hindsight, I could (and should) have cleared this area myself – no big machines would have been used and no mess would have been left behind.
A Handmade Solution
Last May, my sister and I began cutting down the remaining brush and stumps with clippers (we kept forgetting to bring the chainsaw). The photos below show the same area before and after our couple of hours of work.
Progress, but No Quick Fix
I continued on my own later, walking back and forth, searching for stumps. I cut them flush to the ground with my chainsaw or clippers. One day, I walked back and forth for almost six hours. It was painstaking, but I had no interest in paying anyone else to finish the job.
Last fall, I removed years of fallen leaves then raked the remaining debris into piles, revealing the fattest, most energetic earthworms I’ve ever seen. Some of them shot up like geysers when their leaf cover was removed. Very odd, but at least the soil was probably well-aerated.
Sometimes I dumped the debris into a cart hitched to the back of my mower and rode it to a hidden brush pile at the bottom of a hill several hundred feet away. Sometimes it was actually easier to just rake it onto a big tarp and haul it on foot, which is how we removed all the leaves.
It wasn’t the most physically demanding labor, but it was beyond tedious.
As I got closer to the actual ground, I was raking what looked like a crumble topping for a dessert – indeterminate organic matter that became really heavy in small amounts. Maybe it was the precursor to actual soil? In any event, I ended up leaving at least a dozen piles of compacted material because I’d just become sick of dealing with it.
A Glimmer of Hope
By this time it was early-mid October, a bit past the ideal time to seed in the fall. I re-seeded a small portion of Maple Tree Row anyway, using Kentucky 31 (or KY 31) tall fescue and top dressing it with a sprinkling of organic horse manure compost from a neighbor. The sprayer that I’d hitched to my mower wasn’t maintaining pressure for some reason so I couldn’t water the seeds as recommended. My brother fixed it in the late afternoon, but by that time I’d had it and left it to Mother Nature to do the rest. Within a week, green fuzz appeared so I knew I was on my way to victory!
I discovered last fall that Kentucky 31 is a bright green grass, which I don’t favor. I hadn’t even considered that the color of various lawn grasses could differ so much; the KY 31 was on sale, and all I knew was that a tall fescue should work pretty well. Now I’ll use it only on the less-manicured areas such as Maple Tree Row combined with other, darker grasses for a more desirable appearance. I’ve also since learned that the type of KY 31 that I bought is not labeled endophyte-free so it could pose some threat to certain grazing animals. I am not at all well-versed on this issue and I don’t have grazing animals (yet), but I’ll do additional research as warranted.
Spring 2019: Completing a Major Green Phase
Fast forward to this past weekend. Here is what the site looked like before we began our final push:
After mowing the lawns for hours then working all Saturday afternoon under the canopy with little wind and too many bugs, I was dejected that there was still so much debris. Around 7:00pm that evening, I decided that I would finish clearing/seeding just the front portion of Maple Tree Row and complete the job in the fall.
I emptied a 40-pound bag of organic topsoil into six of the deepest impressions to try to even out the surface. I don’t want it to be ice rink-smooth, but you shouldn’t end up biting your tongue while you’re on your riding mower because the ground is so uneven! The surface wasn’t really that bad, but several spots looked as though a large animal had been bedding down there.
Once again, as sunlight was rapidly fading, my sister and I hand spread grass seed. This time it was a mix of the Kentucky 31, a custom blend of shade grasses from a local garden center ($3.49 per pound), and a dash of organic mini clover. We had no energy or time to water, but it did shower on Monday evening as forecast and it’s supposed to shower two more days this week as well.
The next morning, we measured the area that we’d seeded (and re-seeded): 160’ L x 33’ W, just over half the length of Maple Tree Row. Some of the seed that we’d spread on the new top soil had been scratched, probably thanks to the wild turkeys that roam around. That’s all the better for me, as that improved the seed contact with the soil.
I’m so happy to be done with this project until the fall! I’ll post weekly progress photos (for better or worse).
As with all things in life, you have to know when to quit and know that quitting isn’t always defeat: clearing the remainder of Maple Tree Row is too monotonous and dispiriting at this point, and it’s getting too late to do effective spring seeding. Also, my time in June/July will be better spent reclaiming the sunny areas of the property before it gets too hot and where I can achieve much faster, meaningful results.
My next project is for this coming weekend and it’s a “quick hit”: mowing the foot+ long grass bordering the northern edge of the main lawn near the pond. That means that I’ll be firing up the brush hog for the first time this spring, and I may post a video of myself in action. Stay tuned!
Natural Landscaping: The Fire Pond