Adventures of Mooch

[jedishampoo]

I have griped about the bad things about living on the southside of Indianapolis... now I'll talk about something good. Being near my parents! If I am going to live in Indiana to be near my family, I figured I'd buy a house in the same township my parents live in, otherwise they'd never visit.

But I have discovered that buying a house means I must spend less money on certain things-- like food. I'm so poor! So I tend to show up at the folks' house for food. I call daily to see what they're doing.

Monday, 2:00 p.m.
Mom: Hello?
Me: Hi. What are you having for dinner?
Mom: Your daddy's getting Chinese carryout.
Me: HOORAY!

Tuesday, 2:oo p.m.
Mom: Hello?
Me: Hi. What are you having for dinner?
Mom: Pork chops.
Me: Awwwwwww....
Mom: But we have baked potatoes and sour cream and cauliflower and broccoli...
Me: HOORAY!

Wednesday:
Mom: Hello?
Me: Spaghetti tonight?
Mom: Yes.
Me: SEE YOU AT 5:30!

And I steal all the leftovers. They won't eat 'em anyway-- they'd just sit in their fridge and go bad. Me, now, I'm a real connoisseur of leftovers. I think I have all my mom's Tupperware at this point.

Oh, and the cicadas!

I tried to take a video of my yard with audio of the very loud cicadas. Sorry for the crappy video! Anyway, aren't they noisy? And also, can you see that crazy hill in my backyard? The previous owners took the drainage ditch and piled it with railroad ties, trying to turn it into some kind of country walk with flower beds and a 'stream.' However, only weeds grow there. I had to pay someone to kill the poison ivy and chop it all down.

On the flat parts we're trying to put down black landscaping fabric and lava rocks, but what do I do with that hill? The rocks would just roll down it. HELP ME.

Comments

[jedishampoo.livejournal.com]

(Oh, and to answer your questions - I just want to plant something, or place something, or something something, on that hill that will be very easy to care for. I will have enough flowerbeds and flowers and herbs and stuff elsewhere around the yard to keep me busy... I think other things will grow there, because it's not too shady-- the neighbors have grassy hills-- but I'd like to just have something there that I never have to worry about.

[7veilsphaedra.livejournal.com]

Trees, vines and shrubs then, with landscaping fabric at the bases. I would look at permaculture solutions for the base though. What climate zone are you?

[jedishampoo.livejournal.com]

Humid continental climate, says Wikipedia. :) Do you know of a good map? I used to know these things, back when I was buying bulbs from Dutch companies.

[helliongoddess.livejournal.com]

http://www.garden.org/zipzone/index.php She may have meant the hardiness zone thing, that refers to the growing season, when the first frosts come, etc. - this link gives a thing where you can plug in your zipcode and it tell you the zone. Then most garden centers and catalogs sell the plants with info on them about the hardiness zones they are rated for. I'm zone 7a, which would be considerably warmer/longer growing season than you - I think yours is 5b.

[helliongoddess.livejournal.com]

I've been listening with interest to this whole exchange - we have a huge yard (a whole acre) with very little landscaping, and what there is, is bad (yuccas, pampas grass, some shrubs around the foundation and a few small trees that have not been properly cared for. The previous owner mulched all the beds with big nasty gravel. We already lost one of our few trees, a bradford pear that had been allowed to grow too tall and thick, and we had to yank out two huge pyracanthas that were taking over the whole front of the house. So we have basically a blank canvas waiting for us to re-do the whole thing.

I have two priorities for what I want to do here: one, I want to add as much shade and privacy as possible, as quickly as possible, because I don't have enough of neither - that was really the only thing I really did not like about this house when we bought it. And the other is I would like to put in some things that will provide us some food sources in the long run, like some nut trees, and mulberry trees, and maybe some berry hedges, so we will have sources of food in the future as we get closer to retirement and our incomes go down (plus, food is just NOT getting any cheaper, that's for certain.) So it's going to be a long process, but all of your suggestions to jedi made a lot of sense, phae, and I will bear them in mind.

[7veilsphaedra.livejournal.com]

If you're looking longterm, then you want to start on the trees as soon as possible. I can't imagine the possibilities that are available to people who live in such lush temperate climates. I suppose the weeds and bugs are a problem, but where I live, the growing season is so short, and the winter-kill rate is enormous (because we get very dramatic thaw/frost cycles.) To me, the places where you and jedi live are like the Gardens of Eden. What I would do to have the selection of plants and trees that can grow for you!

One thing about living in hot, humid climes is that you want to channel wind and air circulation to you, so you don't want to build windbreaks. Anything along your perimeter needs to be porous to create effective breezeways. So, no hedges.

Shade trees and vines which grow against the house are the most effective passive coolant systems you can find, but you don't want to shade your garden. Planting fruit trees next to the house is ideal because most fruit tree roots dislike akalyne pH, so their roots won't go into your cement because of its lime content. I'm not sure what to do about wasps, though. Our big fake nests work, here, but wasps aren't usually a big problem in any case.

In terms of a vegetable garden, if you're looking longterm over your retirement, you want something that is going to take the least amount of effort and provide a high yield. Because your health is a consideration, I would seriously look into 3-foot high boxes surrounded with a chicken wire enclosure, and frames over which netting may be draped. You can lay old windows over the boxes during the frost seasons to protect the seedlings, and the netting will keep most animal pests away.

I'm not sure how to combat insect infestations in your area though. Strong, healthy plants tend to repel insects for some reason, so probably making sure they are well fertilized and watered would help.

[helliongoddess.livejournal.com]

We face the highway on one side (there's one house & lot between us and it, but it's still way too close for comfort), and we really need something to break both the visual and noise impact of that. I had originally thought those tall cypress trees, but I've been told they are too vulnerable to the high winds we get here, with hurricanes and tropical storms. The house is kind of exposed for a long distance on all sides, so I think we could do a lot of tree planting, and not risk significantly impairing the breezes coming to the house. And having some shade on the house in the warm months (which is so much of the year here) would be an energy bonus. Thank god this house has a geothermal HVAC system and a great artesian well - that was one of the reasons I overlooked the lack of privacy & good landscaping! Those save us a lot of money (and the water is SO good!) I still want to put some solar panels on the roof eventually.

Bugs are definitely a problem here - we had a horrendous Japanese ladybug infestation our first year here, and there are all kinds of insects here that I never had to deal with even in the city. (But no roaches! YAY for that!) But we do feed the birds like mad, and they help keep the bugs down a lot.

I know myself better than to plan too much in the way of an in-ground vegetable garden - I just physically can't handle that anymore. Raised beds, or better yet, container gardening, will have to suffice for that. But any other ways we can plant trees and bushes that will yield edible things, I'd like to explore. Some day I may get ambitious and even get a small coop and a few hens - I believe we are zoned for it. My hubby has to take care of them at his living history museum job, so he knows how to deal with them already. Anything we can do that increases self-sufficiency is a good thing in my book at this point.

[7veilsphaedra.livejournal.com]

Although I adore beautiful avenues of cypress or lombardy poplars stretching into the distance, most places are not designed for them. From your description of the winds, you could plant a cypress, but it would need to be in a companion grouping with at least two other support trees. So, it would go on the far northeast side of the staging area, and then you would plant one sort of tall spreading evergreen (like a golden cedar) to the south and another (colorado blue spruce) to the west. That way, when a gale blows, that tree has others as backup. This is the forest-style planting.

Trees which grow in forests have less windfall because they have companions which help keep the roots interlocked and deep, and when they sway and bend, they are supported by each others' branches. When you take out trees in a forest, the remaining ones are much weaker than those that grow by themselves in a dale, and they tend to snap like matchsticks in a high wind. So, if you plant forest-style companion groves, don't take out any trees!

Another way to get trees to grow stronger, is to keep them topped and pruned.

[helliongoddess.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that's why we lost the bradford pear and the pussy willow we have lost already (the pussy willow is reviving, one segment of it survived, but the bradford was a total loss) - the moron that owned the house before us, the same one that planted all the yuccas and pampas grass, didn't prune and top the trees. At least we got the bradford down before this storm that is barreling down on us right now hit - it was right by the driveway, and would surely have come down on top of my mustang, with my luck!

I even thought about trying a wall of the non-spreading bamboo as a wind- and noise-break - some of the varieties now are so pretty, but we are just one climate zone off from where it will grow. We can only do the rhizomatous kind, and I am not willing to take that on (it's just giant crab grass!) What I would really like to do is get a good landscape designer (one with an open mind, not a totally conventional one) to do a long-range design plan for me, with staged, prioritized lists of what we need to do over time, since we can't afford to do it all at once. I have an antique that my mother has told me I'm at liberty to sell if I don't want it (I don't! it's Queen Anne, which I don't care for, and just too pricey and fragile, it's always made me nervous, having it around.) Maybe if I can dump... err, sell... it, I can afford to get the landscaping really underway. It would mean much more to me in the long run than that damn highboy ever would.

[7veilsphaedra.livejournal.com]

If money is a consideration, then bide your time and do some research. Take a slow drive around and scope out the parks and gardens that attract you the most and make note of the trees they've planted, how they've arranged them, and what would work best for your yard in terms of sun/shade, soil composition and groundwater levels. Where I live, for example, pussy willows — all willows for that matter — are weed-trees which get into the plumbing and chomp through paved driveways like they were saltine crackers and block sewers. So they are a no-go for our area.

I threw together a rough outline of a garden plan for jedi up above. Maybe that would work for you. The basic principles are the same for any enclosed suburban-style of yard though, unless you're going for a formal garden, and it doesn't sound like that's your style. If it is, look up Sissinghurst or Hidcote and follow the planting principles laid out by those styles instead.