an early start

We started seeding plugs right after the 2010 winter solstice. Coleen did most of the seeding while I kept busy with making tags, sifting sandThe sand was sifted out of highway mix gravel.
A light dusting of sand was put on top of each plug.
This made it easy to tell whether the plugs needed watering later on. , cleaning seed, and filling the plug cells with soil. This took a couple of days, then all of the plug trays were moved outside and placed in the bunker. First, though, snow had to be removed. It was then heaped on top of the trays. Coinci­dent­ally, we started cold-stratifying additional seed which was put in 5 cm pots later in the year.

 

 

come spring

At the end of April we seeded the 5 cm pots and moved the trays out to the second bunker. Then both bunkers were covered with clear poly (vapour barrier) which was weighted down with sand bags saved from the 2009 flood. The boards spanning the width of the bunkers prevented the plastic from being pressed against the soil when it rained. A couple of boards were laid on top of the plastic to prevent it from billowing in the wind. A total of 1,892 plugs and small pots were seeded with a total of 56 species.

We had a fairly good turnout and, come June, we were off to the races with more than a thousand baby plants and a small window in which to get them in the ground. Between June 16 and July 13, 1,262 seedlings were planted in 26 separate patches all over the property. And 30 seedlings were potted up. It took us 149 hours; an average of 8.7 plants / hour.

A break down of what was seeded and germinated is here: Planting 2011. Where and what was planted is here: Planting 2011. Overall we had a 68% germination rate and a 92% survival rate (although additional plants seemed to fail after we counted). Both numbers are better than previous years, especially the survival rate.

 

 

In most areas we dug appropriate sized holes with a weeding fork and, after gently placing the seedlings in the holes and packing them in, placed flax straw collars around the young plants as markers to remind us not to weed them next year. We did not, as we had done the year before, ammend the soil at all. At the time of planting the soil was still very moist, even wet in some places, below the surface.

This method worked reasonably well; most of the plants appeared to survive, although we won’t know for sure until next year.

 

In a couple of areas, near the dwelling unit, we turned the soil for the whole patch first — which made planting easier — and, after the seedlings were planted, added some additional seed of the same species, then covered the patches with a thin layer of flax straw.

 

The patches covered completely with flax mulch were the most successful (almost 100% survival). And, since we removed as many exisiting plants as we noticed when we turned the soil, almost no undesirables came up alongside the Native plants. And some of the Native plant seed we sowed germinated.

staying alive

It was a very dry summer. We received all of two sprinkles (for about three minutes each) between the end of May and the middle of September. Watering the various patches where we planted was necessary otherwise most of the seedlings would have died. Two sprinklers were operating for several hours pretty much every day from mid-July to mid-September. Along with evaporation (it was also hot) all the watering drained considerable water from the pond which, fortunately, had been higher than usual for the past two years. That the many planted areas were spread around the whole property made for much dragging of hoses. When it’s filled with water, an 85 m long hose is heavy.

Watering also helped with weeding by making the soil workable.

 

did I say the “W” word again?

Weeding began as soon as the yard started to dry out in the spring. We were falling behind in the planted areas so we tried, at one point, to simply pull out dandelions growing in one spot we weren’t able to get to: the east slope of the west dike. The dandelions were flowering and their spreading basal leaves were preventing adjacent Native plants from coming up. Just pulling off the top growth didn’t, of course, get rid of them; they all grew back. Elsewhere, dandelions, Canada thistles, and alfalfa were dug out. Black meddick (which had a very good year) was pulled, as was bird vetch bird vetch, Vicia cracca ~ 11JL07
One persistent plant!. All of these species of plant, along with many others, kept appearing all summer long. We removed them over and over and over in the front yard and parts of the west yard. Clovers, which had been a big concern the year before didn’t do so well early in the year; especially the one named creeping Charlie (Glechoma hederacea). Many were dug out and some were sprayed (which had no effect). Sow thistles made an appearance in early July; we waited until they started flowering to pull them out.

While it seemed the clovers were not going to be a problem, alsike clover (Trifolium hybridum L.) showed up in mid-September, following a good rain, and started to take over a few areas, primarily in the east ditch, the west yard, and around the south and west sides of the pond. We were not able to get to it before it set seed.

Parts of the east yard and the inside slopes and top of the ring dike were harrowed a couple of times. And the inside of the dike was scraped with the rear blade on the tractor to move soil that had eroded down the slopes back to the top. The dike was then watered to knit the loose soil with the packed soil underneath it. This was done to reduce the amount of erosion if there was a heavy rain. Unfortunately it didn’t work. The loose soil remained loose.

After harrowing the east yard, much of which had filled in with foxtail barley, the thatch that collected in the harrow was dragged over to a couple of spots on the outside of the dike which were dense with clovers (mostly creeping Charlie). Unfortunately, while the clovers were suppressed, the patches of thatch filled in with mostly dandelions. From the looks of things they are going to be a big problem next year. Canada thistle, too, had an exceptional year. The ditches and adjacent lots and the stretch alongside the railroad tracks plus the southern edge of the farmer’s field (at the northern edge of the pond) all had large, dense stands of the invasive plant.

By the end of the season the exotics had won again. But we managed to remove most of them from the front yard and from a few areas in the west yard; the back yard was harrowed and we started covering unplanted areas with flax straw. Unfortunately, the east yard and parts of the inside slopes of the dike started to fill in with dandelions. And quackgrass returned and spread over much of the east yard as well.

 

we’re not done yet

We decided to seed some test plots. The plugs approach seemed to be successful. But, scattered though it was, the total area we planted is equivalent to that of a small back yard; about 50 m². We have close to 10,000 m² left to plant. Even if we could double the planting rate it would take about 100 years to plant the yard with plugs.

 

One test plot is in the back yard. The other three are in the east yard. Two circles in the east yard were seeded at the beginning of August, the third will be seeded in October for spring germination. The patch in the back yard was also seeded at the beginning of August.

 

The test plots in the east yard are each 14 m². Of the two seeded in August, the soil was turned and weeded for one and not the other; it was only harrowed. Half of each circle was covered with a thin layer of flax straw. This is to determine whether a covering of thatch helps or hinders germination.

The plot in the back yard is a bit smaller, maybe 12 m²; the top layer of soil had just been removed to use a short distance away, as a raised area for a compost bin.

All of the test plots were watered regularly until the third week in September.

 

 

At the time of writing this not much had come up in the three areas that were seeded and watered. Although the patch in the back yard and the unturned circle in the east yard were both sporting a fair number of exotic seedlings; mostly stinkweed in the back and European alkali grass and dandelions in the east yard.

 

By mid-August, fatigue set in. We were both exhausted. It wasn’t just from all the work; temperatures during most of July and August were in the high 20s to mid 30s and the UV index was generally 8 or 9. And, unlike previous years, there were no days off when it rained because it didn’t rain. Still, tired though we were, we continued weeding a few hours each day until about the middle of September.

As well, Donna, Coleen’s daughter-in-law, who works for the Provincial Government monitoring highway construction, stopped by with one of the foremen from the construction crew. They were looking for a place to dump broken up chunks of concrete. We couldn't use that. But when I asked if they had any palettes Norm’s eyes lit up. They were regularly driving loads of used palettes to the landfill site about 6 km west of us. Within two weeks they dropped three truckloads of about 35 palettes each on the driveway in front of the garage. Half of them were used to line the dirt floor of the west side of the garage. Some of them were laid alongside the garage between it and the dwelling unit as a rudimentary boardwalk. Most of the rest were later used as makeshift snow fences in a couple of locations around the yard.

I have to backtrack a bit

Prior to planting out the Native seedlings, we readied and planted (mostly seeded) a vegetable garden at the eastern edge of the nursery. Thanks to Audrey Young, this included a dozen various tomato plants. We planted carrots, snow peas, green and yellow beans, kolrabi (which we didn’t care for) Swiss chard, yellow zuchini, dill, oregano, and a Chinese winter melon (sprawling plant with gourd-like fruit). The chard was the best performer; it was still growing in early October after a frost that finished the tomato plants.

At the beginning of the year I was able to mow a couple of small areas, including a path to the service road to the west of the property. Then the lone working hand mower quit. We did not have money for a new one or to fix the garden tractor. So, once again I used the rear blade on the tractor to flatten the exotic grasses and forbs on the outside of the dike. This didn’t work as well as it had the previous year; the vegetation was too sparse. I also flattened some dense stands of Canada thistle growing among mostly smooth brome in the adjacent lots and beside the service road. Neither the grass nor the thistles rebounded, partly because of the dry summer. They remained so flat, in fact, that the Highways Department didn’t bother to mow beside the service road (something which they had done every other year).

While it remains unplanted, the nursery was almost weed-free after being covered with a thick layer of flax straw the year before. The weeds that came up in the unlined drainage ditches and in the path beside the back of the garage were sprayed with herbicide which got rid of most of them. We hope to obtain more flax straw before the year is out and to use it to cover, along with some other areas, the path behind the garage.

 

more planting

At the end of September we moved a bunch of plants around the yard; mostly taking plants from the the west yard and planting them by the pond. These included: green, cosmopolitan, and softstem bulrushes, a buttercup, blue vervain, Canada and Missouri goldenrods, swamp milkweed, and yellow woodsorrell. We also moved some tall mannagrass from the east yard to the pond and split a three-flowered avens in the front yard. Some pussytoes were relocated from the front yard to the side of the babbling brook. And the riverbank grape that was not doing well by the almost dead tree on the southwest corner of the site was exchanged with the hops that was not doing well around the hydro pole in the west yard.

 

And we finally started a compost pile.

next year ...

Over the course of the summer, we also collected some seed. What and where is itemized here: seed collecting.

 

visual delight plus

Whatever else one might want to say about this endeavour, this yard is becoming an interesting place. We don’t know how the birds and insects and spiders find it, but they do.

 

Midway through the summer, while walking through the front yard, I commented to one visitor:

“I think we’re about two years away from the WOW effect.”

“It definitely looks wild,” he responded.

I don’t think he meant what he said as a compliment but we took it as one.

 

Robert G. Mears

October 2011

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