A large western hemlock tree died across the street (no surprise, since they built a new house there and compacted the soil and removed nearby trees that helped shade it). We were sad to see it go, but happy when the tree cutters came and shredded it. Leon had the foresight to ask if they would give us the chips from it, and they did. On top of that wonderful gift, they offered to drop off more chips when they cut down other trees in the neighborhood.
Because the seedlings for the parking strip garden are doing so well, I decided it makes more sense to plant them this fall, rather than in the spring. So, Leon is helping me kill the grass in the parking strip so it will be ready to plant come early November. We put down tarps and landscape cloth in anticipation of the second batch of chips.
And then this happened:
The tree cutters dropped off a huge pile of chips on Friday! I called it Mt. Chips and this is Bodhi conquering it. I estimate it was about four square yards of chips that smelled great–we think it was a pine tree. And it was all free!
So, I spend a lot of the Labor Day holiday spreading it onto the parking strip and beyond–because there was way more than we needed for just the parking strip. We also mulched the woodland garden and mulched over the too-thin mulch around the raised veggie beds. Brother Tim helped out today and it went pretty fast with three of us!
Click above to see Brother Tim and the final results.
I also potted up six Streptocarpus leaf cuttings from eBay that I plan to root in my room on the heating cable in the humidity tray. The cuttings arrived in wonderful shape and I’m hopeful that all of them will root. They include:
Some of the perennial seedlings are blooming already. The Achillea ptarmica are blooming, as are the Santa Barbara daisies, and a few of the catmints, as well. Most of the plants look pretty strong, but I’m not sure exactly how I’ll get them safely in the ground and mulched when they are still pretty small. The soil in that strip will need some organic matter, manure, and fertilizer, too, to help them out. I’ll work on that in the coming weeks.