New Beds, New Trees
Just when I thought it was safe to head outside the weather turned very, very bad. Those of you further north in the US felt it even worse (and our friends in the UK just endured a hellish few months). In fact, as I persevered through the 40 degree F/40 mph windstorm, I received a message from my landscape architect friend who wrote, “I drove by your place this afternoon and wondered how much you were paying that poor sucker to work in your garden today, and then I realized it was you.” But persevere I did and made some really good progress.
With the pathways in place it was time to get serious about the condition of the soil in the Arrival Court Garden. As it is a partially sunken garden, a significant portion has been graded down to subsoil, and here in Northern Virginia that means 100% red clay. As much as I buy into the whole “no dig” concept (though I’m less interested in the surrounding dogma), a few exploratory spadefuls confirmed there was serious work to be done if we wanted anything approaching friable soil. So I started by forking the clay down to 12 inches deep.
One casualty of the pandemic/economic collapse/Armageddon is that my local nursery no longer delivers the excellent “Loudoun County Compost” that comes from the large-scale composting operation. Something about the price of diesel (although it’s lower than it was when he delivered) has made it no longer worth his while. So if I want compost I must cart it away in one-yard trips in the pickup, or go further afield for my muck. Enter McGill Soilbuilder.
After some frustrating cross-talk with the surly operative at Loudoun Milling (one of those rustic gatekeepers who, if he gets a whiff of you being in any way “city,” feels duty bound to question you until you reveal some rural ignorance) we determined that eight cubic yards of McGill SoilBuilder would cure all my ills. I ordered and it soon arrived in all its fetid glory. There’s a real Soylent Green vibe about this compost, quite unlike the leaves and pinecone feel of my usual blend. According to the boffins at Soylent Green LLC (dba McGill SoilBuilder), I’m to add three inches on top and blend. Thankfully the front-end loader took care of most of the grunt work. I’m still concerned about the way at least one of the quadrants holds water, but I think an annual addition of a yard or so of leaf mulch will eventually remedy the situation.
I really enjoy planting trees and I’ve invested in the kit to be able to plant anything up to a 24” rootball. Initially we brought in the professionals to plant a number of very large trees, jump starting the re-foresting of one edge of the property.
Moving forward I hope to make any new additions myself as it makes the tree budget go much further (the standard rubric when having trees installed is to multiply the wholesale price of the tree by 3). These new Acer rubrum “October Glory” specimens will complement the larger Acers planted two years ago. The soil is much loamier (if that’s a word) down here near the creek, and the digging was easy.
If this seems like over-engineering, it is in response to the somewhat enthusiastic methods of the man who cuts our grass. For purposes of this newsletter, we will call him McAllister. I really like McAllister. He’s reasonably priced, only arrives when the lawn needs cutting (sometimes once every two weeks in the summer), and is a great source of gossip about the previous owners. Paying to have the grass cut, in my opinion, is money well spent. He brings in a big mower (that I don’t have to buy or maintain) and knocks out a couple of acres in an hour or so. But McAllister is unfamiliar with turf-cut borders, and on my first tree planting effort he ran the mower up to a couple of inches from the trunk, obliterating the mulch and the crisp edges of grass. And since we’ve fallen into a pattern of fighting-the-battle-of-who-could-care-less about the condition of the lawn (“lawn” being a generous term as it is mostly weeds, moss, and molehills), the very idea of discussing any fussiness about the yard would violate the spirit of our relationship, so instead I build elaborate fail-safes to guard carefully cut borders.
But in spite of the chill, spring is in the offing. Last week a small flock of Turkeys sauntered across the lawn, and on warmer nights we can hear the tree frogs and the Barred Owls making their preparations. And if there was any doubt, on Friday Monty (and Ned!) welcomed us to Gardeners’ World. If the buds are breaking at Longmeadow, our own robins can’t be far behind.
I hope you will write a book in the not-too-distant future. You do have a way of turning a phrase that makes me smile, and nod sympathetically.
We have clay here too, on top of the glacial till. I've been amending it for years with manure and my own compost. Last year's discovery was "Sea compost". We shall see indeed.