Yard evaluation
Jun. 30th, 2009 12:21 pm![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png)
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It is summer here...100 or more degrees most days, and dry dry dry. Drought all around us, and burn bans for, as far as I can tell, most if not all of Texas.
In fact, we are having our first rain in MONTHS as I type this.
We dutifully went out in it naked to say thanks, of course. Honestly, it felt like my skin was soaking it in..... I can't bear to dry off, so I'm sitting here dripping as I type. :P
Our sprinkler system has a leak, and I can't fix it until the temperature drops to 80 degrees so the glue will set. What this means is that we have not been watering anything but the garden. It wasn't our intention, but it seems we are doing the "native and adapted stress test" on our yard. I did this with my overly-landscaped first house as well, for a year, I did not water. If it died, we pulled it out. This eliminated all the "baby me" plants from the yard. It wasn't a conscious choice to do so this time, as it was then, but since we are halfway through the summer...hey, why not carry it all the way?
We have also learned, as we deal with trees-leafed-out-for-summer shade, that while the side yard is excellent for winter crops, it does doodly in the summer...not enough sun. The trees committing this anti-garden shade crime are large and old, and make what will be the only remaining kid-play-space lawn area pleasant...so they stay. (Plus, they are trees! duh! not something to remove on a whim) This requires some small revamp of our plans.
Better to learn it now than later, huh? :)
And now, I go to enjoy the rain a bit more before we have to run our errands this afternoon...I wish we could delay them, I want to just lay around and be grateful for a while while I breath the ions deep into my lungs.
As a side note, it physically hurts me to see all the water flowing out of our gutters...rain barrels are definitely at the top of the "saving money toward" list.....
In fact, we are having our first rain in MONTHS as I type this.
We dutifully went out in it naked to say thanks, of course. Honestly, it felt like my skin was soaking it in..... I can't bear to dry off, so I'm sitting here dripping as I type. :P
Our sprinkler system has a leak, and I can't fix it until the temperature drops to 80 degrees so the glue will set. What this means is that we have not been watering anything but the garden. It wasn't our intention, but it seems we are doing the "native and adapted stress test" on our yard. I did this with my overly-landscaped first house as well, for a year, I did not water. If it died, we pulled it out. This eliminated all the "baby me" plants from the yard. It wasn't a conscious choice to do so this time, as it was then, but since we are halfway through the summer...hey, why not carry it all the way?
We have also learned, as we deal with trees-leafed-out-for-summer shade, that while the side yard is excellent for winter crops, it does doodly in the summer...not enough sun. The trees committing this anti-garden shade crime are large and old, and make what will be the only remaining kid-play-space lawn area pleasant...so they stay. (Plus, they are trees! duh! not something to remove on a whim) This requires some small revamp of our plans.
Better to learn it now than later, huh? :)
And now, I go to enjoy the rain a bit more before we have to run our errands this afternoon...I wish we could delay them, I want to just lay around and be grateful for a while while I breath the ions deep into my lungs.
As a side note, it physically hurts me to see all the water flowing out of our gutters...rain barrels are definitely at the top of the "saving money toward" list.....