In Jo's Yard - 14 Weeding Starts Early

Remember ‘way back’ Entry #4, when I said “I imagine I will look forward to mornings with gloves and clippers.”  Feeling a little naïve.  All that pine straw is supposed suppress weeds, but every morning, I see unwanted sprouts of grass!  Thistles, cheat grass, crab grass, purslane, swine cress and spurge! Kirsten from Green Isle Gardens helps me identify a few kinds of weeds.  I think the spurge is the worst.  It imitates the frog fruit and creeps out in a wide circle almost overnight!  I find a website to help me identify MORE weeds:  https://www.preen.com/weeds/fl    

If you don’t count the bending-over, the weeds are easy to pick out since the frog fruit plants are just coming in and have not spread out.  I can spend 30-60 minutes every morning pulling weeds out, just to see more appear the next day.  I tell myself that once the frog fruit fill in, and I can minimize the watering, the weeds will diminish.  Oh, hope springs eternal!  In the meantime, at least I am enjoying beautiful cool mornings, outside.  I don’t have a dog to walk, but I chat with the dog-walkers who pass by.  “Frog Fruit – it’s a native ground cover!”  “It’s coming along”  “It’s filling in”  “You can mow it like grass, but it doesn’t require the water, fertilizer, pesticides that grass does.”


                                        Spurge at the top, Purslane with the yellow flower

In Jo's Yard - 13 A Sea of Pine Straw

Day 2 of the Phase 1 planting, SO-O-O much pine straw is delivered!  Of course, it will cover the entire yard, not just Phase 1, in an effort to prevent grass and weeds from cropping up.  

The two Flatwood Plum trees and the Wild Lime tree are small, but I am excited to think about the beauty, the shade and the cover they will provide for me and the local wildlife.  Three hundred plus frog fruit plants are here, but by the end of the day, it is a sea of pine straw.  Still, I don’t think it will be long before wonderful things start happening!  

                       Plants are in the ground – pine straw ready to be spread around

                                                             A “sea” of pine straw

In Jo's Yard - 12 Planting Natives in My Phase 1

After a few delays, due to weather and previous commitments, Green Isle Gardens (http://www.greenislegardens.com/) arrives to start the real conversion process July 2018.   I work 2AM-9AM both days, but manage to stay awake to watch in fascination. 

The dead grass is turned over to be used as organic material for the new plants.  Kirsten Sharp-Ortega lays out where the plants will go and then two other workers put them in the ground.  We are doing the front part of the yard.  Most of the work is done on Day 1.  


                                   Kirsten from Green Isle Gardens places plants in yard.

In Jo's Yard - 11 Removing the Non-Native Plants

I offered shrubs to my neighbors, but there were few takers.  One neighbor takes the tree from the front yard and the holly bush from in front of the garage.  A few days later, a neighbor, Tony C, graciously digs up the shrubs for me.  Then, I get a call from an FNPS member wanting to see my yard – thinking it was already Native.  He and his daughter come over anyway – take away 6 Indian Hawthorns in a sports car – 5 in “back seat” & 1 in “boot”.   The remaining shrubs go to the land fill. 


I am painfully aware of the state of my yard, and try to look forward to what will be.  From my office window, I see cars and carts slow down and I feel the stares.  If I encounter walkers, I cheerfully tell them it will get better – “I’m replacing the grass with Frog Fruit”.  That’s usually followed by a discussion about what a funny name for a plant, what it is and where they might see it.  The Villages uses it around the postal pick-ups, median strips, residential “public areas” or islands.  I hope it’s something to think about.  https://www.fnps.org/plants/plant/phyla-nodiflora



                                        Shrubs dug up, drying out, on my dried out lawn