Grass.

4-29-10 SHORT HILLS: We got 2.6 inches of rain in the three day storm. Since the rain stopped, it’s been cool, but warmer today, and windy, windy enough to shake branches out of the trees, but no real damage so far. I did more pruning and moved some overgrown flagstones to a new site.

It’s time for my yearly rant about grass. We live in NJ on the side of a hill, a mesozoic basaltic ridge actually. A hundred or so years ago, the hillside was a deciduous forest. The trees and soil soaked up heavy precip and the ecosystem was stable. Now we have suburbia with houses, streets, sidewalks, driveways, patios, terraces all of which shed rain water which pours down the hillside necessitating sewers. Most of the trees are gone, partly replaced by grass which absorbs less rain water than trees.

We are toward the bottom of the hill, and a lot of our topsoil has been lost to erosion in spite of terracing I have done to reduce and slow runoff. Grass grows poorly in our yard because it is heavily treed and thus shady, and because four big active dogs turn it into a parade ground.

The situation could be helped with tree pruning, top soil, sod, fertilizer, herbicides, fungicides, pesticides, etc, but I won’t go there. Firstly, I’m too cheap, I prefer the trees as they are, I won’t use any –cidal chemicals because of those dogs, and ourselves, and fertilizer runoff contaminates rivers and streams.

As for top soil, the organic layer on the surface of the soil, there is a regular on-going deposit of organic matter happening—leaves, twigs, spent blossoms, bud casings, grass clippings which people rake up and take away. But not here, I let it all pile up, including the fall leaves, and let it decompose.

As for what grows in the yard, everyone is welcome as long as you can thrive at under three inches. Come on in! We do have some grass, plus crabgrass, dandelions, wild strawberry, clover, sorrel, onion grass, plantain, moss, ivy, virginia creeper and dozen of other weeds whose names are unknown to me.

About a year ago there was an article, I think, in the NYT about what the author, sorry I don’t remember the author’s name, called “freedom lawns”. The idea is to do what I do—nothing, and let it take care of itself except for mowing.

New blooms: honeysuckle bush, wild strawberry, wild garlic mustard, lily-of-the-valley.


"Freedom Lawn" Those trees are about to leaf and blot out the sun.

Why worry about grass when you can have an azalea?

Attack of the Giant Wisteria.

4-25-10 SHORT HILLS: Rain today, at least an inch so far, with more tomorrow and Tuesday. I have done more pruning of the driveway junipers. Every time I look at them, I find another broken branch. I have taken carloads of pruned broken branches to the dump.

Yesterday Judy and I were in Brooklyn to see Maggie perform in the Packer School production of “Grease”. It was nice to hear the music again, and we thought the production was excellent. Before dinner and before the show, we had a tour of Val’s container garden on her third story terrace. Everything is off to a good start, but what were most impressive were the neighbor’s wisteria engulfing apartment buildings.

These wisteria are covered with flowers, mine have never bloomed in spite of all the recommended maneuvers to encourage flowering. I cut them back to the ground last fall, but here they come, all shoots and leaves again.

New blooms: bridal wreath [deutzia], may apple.


These wisteria pix are taken from Val's third-floor terrace. The vines are growing from the ground.

In the lower right foreground is the top of a maple tree.

Shade Trees Casting Shade.

4-21-10 SHORT HILLS: Spring is racing ahead here—trees are in leaf, except beech and ash, the yard is shaded again, the grass is filling in, the mud is drying up. The storm that dumped 1.6 inches of precip in Vermont only left 0.5 inches here.

New blooms, since I was last here: yellow lamium, pink lamium, sweet woodruff, barberry, burning bush, azalea, Carolina allspice, French lilac, three more viburnums.


Kerria makes quite a show.

What could be more lurid than an azalea?

VT Wrap-Up.

4-19-10 VERMONT: The storm ended without any extra rain today, just another 0.1 inch last night. Today was cool, dry, breezy and ocasionally sunny. I finished up the April chores. I did a fence patrol and cut cleared some dead fall on the fence, nothing huge, and tightened up a sagging segment. I finished the veggie fence and staked it in place. I did pruning on lilacs and apple trees now that they have broken out of bud phase. Add in peony and delphinium supports for the flowers of June.

Some perenials and biennials that seem late to awake: tiarella, valerian, epimedium, mallow and some hostas. Serviceberry and star magnolia are about to bloom, I will probably miss them. Back in May, NJ tomorrow.

April Being April.

4-18-10 VERMONT: It continues to rain. No more snow, yet, at least today the rain is showery, and I did get outside for a while. So far, we have had 1.5 inches of precip with more falling. With temps in the forties, the snow is melting, and all the perennials are popping back up.

I oiled all the house door latches and hinges, pasture gates, barn doors and garage doors. I braced some fence posts and braced the pasture gate posts and did a bit more set up on the veggie beds. Judy and I got all the benches and outdoor furniture and the boat out of the cellar and barn into their usual habitats.

New blooms: dandelion, actually a couple days ago, pulmonaria.

February in April.

4-16-10 VERMONT: Big surprise this morning, two inches of wet snow. Rain was predicted, but snow only at higher elevations, etc, etc. Now, mid-morning, it’s rain and about 40°. Snow is sliding off the roof and thumping on the deck and ground. It’s hazardous to step outside and stand by the door.

Yesterday, in the sun, I started prep work on the veggie beds. I pulled the black plastic cover off, dug up the old corn roots and weeds, added three wheelbarrows of soil to fill holes, fertilized, limed, reset and repaired the soaker hose and recovered the beds. The plastic cover suppresses weeds, warms the soil, conserves moisture and keeps the veggies off the dirt. I need to do a bit more there, but it’s under the snow now. I buried that dead fox yesterday that I mentioned last fall now that the ground, and fox, were thawed out.

Another surprise this morning was a pair of ducks on the pond, Common Mergansers, this is a bit south of their usual range. Perhaps they were blown in by the storm. We also saw Evening Grosbeaks at the feeders for the first time this spring. Hummingbirds usually follow those Grosbeak, so I put out the hummer feeder this morning.




Snow Surprise.

Common Mergansers.

Evening Grosbeak.

Fun Day in the Sun.

4-14-10 VERMONT: Another sunny warm day, but the steady NW wind made it feel cool. I clean up the driveway and moved a couple wheelbarrows of gravel back to the top of the drive that were plowed down hill, re-built culvert walls that were plowed off, spread peat moss on the blueberries and fence roses, finished the marten house platform, found a bit more clean-up to do, re-built a small section of stone wall, started putting out plant supports, set up the boat mooring post in the pond, and filled holes in beds and lawn mostly dug by a certain dog, a bad dog. You know who I mean—Gus.

New blooms: red trillium.

Sam knows how to pose while backlit.