Here in Paradise we live at the woods' edge. When we first came here we weren't sure where our yard ended and the woods began, especially at the south and west sides of the house.
Dennis solved that conundrum by Tom Sawyer-ing the building of a stone wall. Our friend Barry knew the dry stone wall art, his father having been a stone mason. Several architecture students as well as our friend Pam were interesting in learning to build a wall. It all came together one Saturday when the team built this wall, as seen thirty years later from the deck of our house, facing west. It is made of stones from the ground around the house.
Barry's father taught him well, for not one stone in this wall has moved in all this time. Virginia creeper tries to invade the yard, but is held back by the wall. We like it and let it grow, but have to cut it back every few years.
Gradual transition from yard to woods also works well. Many native plants that thrive at the edge of our woods are as attractive as shrubs from a nursery. One of those plants is buckbrush, a ubiquitous part of our woods' undergrowth. Here it is as a transition plant, co-existing happily with vinca minor and garlic chives.
When we first moved here I brought a dozen sprigs of vinca from my parents' home in Missouri. I can't remember where I first planted them, but they have spread to form great patches all around the house and into the woods. Vinca is in the first photo in this post. You can see it on the lower right-hand side. I suspect it will eventually jump Chicken Creek and keep going to the Franklin County line. A great advantage to vinca is that it covers the entire rocky hillside below our house. It's evergreen and is covered in blue blossoms in the early spring.
The photo above looks to the west of our house into what we used to call the Vanessa Redgrave Memorial Park. (I don't know why, we just did. I could envision her dancing barefoot there wearing a gauzy white dress.) A few years ago Dennis designed and built an actual memorial there.
We have planted iris, hostas, epimedium and daffodils along along with woodland native phlox and Solomon's seal in beds around the stone work. The columns are broken concrete drainage tubes from under our driveway. To me they symbolize inurnment. The white limestone came from a quarry in St. Mary's, Kansas. Most of our own limestone is too knobby to serve as paving.
Here, too, the existing understory native plants are the transit from yard to woods. About two feet from the edge of the memorial is a natural bed of May apple and buckbrush.
Finally, at the west end of the memorial, is a transition zone made of heaps of deadwood and rocks piled into a shallow gully. The gully marks the end of what we consider to be yard and Dennis doesn't mow beyond it. It isn't pretty, but it is made of natural materials almost in situ, stops erosion and is slowly decaying. Someday it, too, will no doubt be covered by vinca.
A great advantage to aging homeowners is that none of these transition zones requires much attention. All we need to do is pull out any poison ivy that shows up and cut back tree seedlings every year or so. One might call this lazy landscaping, and I wouldn't disagree. It wouldn't work everywhere, but it's perfectly suited to a house at the edge of the woods.
Dennis solved that conundrum by Tom Sawyer-ing the building of a stone wall. Our friend Barry knew the dry stone wall art, his father having been a stone mason. Several architecture students as well as our friend Pam were interesting in learning to build a wall. It all came together one Saturday when the team built this wall, as seen thirty years later from the deck of our house, facing west. It is made of stones from the ground around the house.
Barry's father taught him well, for not one stone in this wall has moved in all this time. Virginia creeper tries to invade the yard, but is held back by the wall. We like it and let it grow, but have to cut it back every few years.
Gradual transition from yard to woods also works well. Many native plants that thrive at the edge of our woods are as attractive as shrubs from a nursery. One of those plants is buckbrush, a ubiquitous part of our woods' undergrowth. Here it is as a transition plant, co-existing happily with vinca minor and garlic chives.
When we first moved here I brought a dozen sprigs of vinca from my parents' home in Missouri. I can't remember where I first planted them, but they have spread to form great patches all around the house and into the woods. Vinca is in the first photo in this post. You can see it on the lower right-hand side. I suspect it will eventually jump Chicken Creek and keep going to the Franklin County line. A great advantage to vinca is that it covers the entire rocky hillside below our house. It's evergreen and is covered in blue blossoms in the early spring.
The photo above looks to the west of our house into what we used to call the Vanessa Redgrave Memorial Park. (I don't know why, we just did. I could envision her dancing barefoot there wearing a gauzy white dress.) A few years ago Dennis designed and built an actual memorial there.
We have planted iris, hostas, epimedium and daffodils along along with woodland native phlox and Solomon's seal in beds around the stone work. The columns are broken concrete drainage tubes from under our driveway. To me they symbolize inurnment. The white limestone came from a quarry in St. Mary's, Kansas. Most of our own limestone is too knobby to serve as paving.
Here, too, the existing understory native plants are the transit from yard to woods. About two feet from the edge of the memorial is a natural bed of May apple and buckbrush.
Finally, at the west end of the memorial, is a transition zone made of heaps of deadwood and rocks piled into a shallow gully. The gully marks the end of what we consider to be yard and Dennis doesn't mow beyond it. It isn't pretty, but it is made of natural materials almost in situ, stops erosion and is slowly decaying. Someday it, too, will no doubt be covered by vinca.
A great advantage to aging homeowners is that none of these transition zones requires much attention. All we need to do is pull out any poison ivy that shows up and cut back tree seedlings every year or so. One might call this lazy landscaping, and I wouldn't disagree. It wouldn't work everywhere, but it's perfectly suited to a house at the edge of the woods.
1 comment:
Little House in the Big Woods! The memorial garden looks so serene...no doubt a snake or two will be slithering by soon!
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