Recovering from the Power Company's Whopping Mistake

One year ago, the power company came into my back yard as it often does in our neighborhoods, to trim back limbs from their lines. A good practice that protects the lines from the winter icings on trees, or the high winds that drop super heavy limbs.  I greatly approve, but feel that some of the burden falls on us for the bushier stuff along the ditch.  So I worked last year to take down the overgrown shrubs that grow up from the ditch to a reasonable height that I can maintain.  Life had made a lot of stuff in my yard become overgrown, so it was slightly overwhelming to think of making it all right. But we determined that we would tackle it a little at a time a be winners eventually. So unwanted trees got cut to the ground, shrubs that sprung up from bird droppings of seeds were sheared to shrub height, and the vines that were a burden on everything, including my good trees, were cleared in part.  We discovered that we had problems. Some of our trees were dying.  And it began with one tree that the top was the first to fall out. Thankfully no one was hurt. Even when the bottom half toppled toward the house only seconds after I had walked by that spot. Thank you Lord for Guardian Angels!

Since my last posts, a lot has changed.  I haven't managed to keep up with the changes, but I was needing a place to put some pictures of those changes, and I remembered that is why I set this site up.  So, considering it could be a very long story, suffice it to say...I built a hoop house style green house that my grandson insists must be called a white house because the plastic is white, not green. LOL

 But I have used that little space to grow and learn all about keeping what I had through the winters, because pulling it all into the living room was a pill.  But in addition, I have experimented with started new plants from cuttings, seeds, and leaf sprouts.  I have rooted potatoes and harvested them from those plants.  I have doubled and tripled some things from cuttings, and I have divided ferns, and other old plants into multiple hanging baskets or rows of ground plantings...such as Hostas.  In other words, thanks to my Whitehouse, my garden has grown.

 

Shelves in back of the green house.
 

White plastic, 4 or 6 mil, with a zipper door.
(Used the ones meant for construction enclosures. Works great all winter.)

 

But up until the power company came, it was mostly for a shade garden which took me years to find plants that would survive, much less bloom, under all my trees.  I had come to a realization that our trees had become so large that losing a few would not hurt greatly, but how to accomplish the reduction was causing us grief, because of the incredible costs.

Several things happened, all of which turned the tide of my gardening in a big way:
1. The house next door burned completely, leaving a shell which sat there with high grass and weeds for several years. The fire caught into the limbs of our Wild Cherry tree, but it had recovered and put on long new limbs.  But we eventually found out that ants attacked it's center and were there because the fire had put the tree into shock,  overheating it's core to the point of causing its slow demise. Add to that the ivy that had taken over, the tree was choked to death as well.  So last year, even tho it put on leaves and berries....it suddenly died. It was right after being trimmed back, because new neighbors were rebuilding the house, and our trees limbs stretched over their roof.

We definitely didn't know this tree was hollow before they cut it, but we did
know that the vines had become a life threatening problem for this tree.

2. The Power company came in to trim, and because a pine near the back of the lot had lower limbs that were dying back, someone with less experience decided that they needed to cut our very tall pine down.  We came home from a day in the mountains to discover it in pieces in my brand new shade garden.  I had just cleaned it, made a hosta border, pulled up the rose into a support, and transplanted Ajuga as a ground cover beneath it. I also had Planted some bulbs, and a few other things that weren't showing their presence at the time. I used pine cones and sweetgum balls as mulch and it was looking rather woodsy/pretty.  But now our tree had crushed all of that, including the rose, and my Ajuga was overheating under 6 inches of saw dust.  Not to mention that we had lost a perfectly fine tree.  We had 2 separate arborists come out and give us quotes to do something about our trees, prior to this, and both said the pine was fine,  if we  just removed the ragged lower limbs.  Why we didn't have the power company turn it into wood planks I don't know, because we discovered it was worth $6000 in pine planking. Ugh! Hind sight is always better.

3. The power company gave us vouchers to buy items to rebuild the garden as we saw fit, because as it turned out. the management did decided they were in error, and asked how they could make it right. So we said, "take down the bad trees which might actually hit the wires if they fell.  Maybe even if they won't, you owe us." So they did.  And removed the stump of the pine tree. Then finally they allowed us to have the entire huge truck load of chipwood from the entire neighborhood.  A huge pile that had taken us an entire year to bring down to the size of about 2 truckloads. Because we have now mulched in pathways through out the yard, and at our hawk watch as well.

4. We were given a pile of flat rock, and the lumber from the burned out house. I started a raised bed where one of the trees was removed, and the sun now blazes down with the rock.  And used some of the chipped wood as fill to begin building it all up, before adding soil.  I used the broken limbs that were left and not cleaned up to lay along the bank to start putting leaves, and clippings into, to build up the bank.  And I purchased a pallet of wall retaining blocks to frame in a new bed where the pine had been.

  I then began to remove the sunscorched Aguga to a border around my large bed. Cleaned and cut back all the Monkey grass borders, and put pine straw from my neighbor's house in between the Monkey grass and the Ajuga.  they had cut up enough small logs that they left behind, that much to our surprise, were enough to go all the way around that path just inside the Ajuga, and still have enough to fill our fire wood holder. There are at least 100 logs around the largest bed.

5. I discovered that Dollar Store plastic containers used for storage and summer outdoor food containers make excellent planters. So I have used the things I grew in the "White house"  to make groupings all around the path, and plant into the raised bed. I took the bird seed which rooted as it fell to the ground and mixed it with seed a friend gave as a gift, to make a small sunflower bed at the extreme edge of the yard.

   

 Using these to shelter my Glad bulbs, newly planted in front, I criss- crossed and tied the sunflowers together so everything would stand against the wind. I made a little area for succulents, and another for herbs, planted 2 small maples. and some other flowering plants for butterflies and hummingbirds.

6. Next we spent our vouchers on pines that will remain small and decorative to put in a garden with a fountain.  I bought a couple of other pines, on sale when I bought the little maples, and a weeping redbud tree.  You see the Power company will not allow us to replant anything that will grow over 25 feet tall. So the weeping cherry that we wanted so much cannot be purchased because it grows to 26 ft. 

7. But I did plant some garden veggies in containers and one large raised bed built with the burnt house wood, and some flashing. It looks good with the galvanized planters I found at the farm centers.  We bought dirt from the landscapers by the truck load, and added all the compost I could make.  We mixed mushroom compost, a bit of manure compost, some peat moss, my compost, and a little top soil with the 6 month old chip wood mulch. Then on top I put potting soil purchased both in bags and bulk.   As much as we could come up with only filled the large raised veggie bed, and one half of the raised hill bed.  Jimmy bought watering troughs made from  a heavy duty fabricated products, in black. Two very large ones, one medium size one and one small round one. The small round one is at least 30 in across, the long ones are about 36 x 72 inches and 30 inches deep.  I raised them onto two layers of concrete block and am bringing the hill side of dirt up to their lip.  On one side the rock is piled to hold it back, on the other side the large logs from the trees are the bank base.  Eventually I will fill the trough and use it for veggies, as well as the back side of the bed behind the trough.  A second one, not so high will go where the pine tree was.  Again for veggies since there is now so much sun back there. 

8. Then finally, I want to include that I discovered that some growers run their pumpkin/gourd/cucumber/squash vines over an arch made from PVC and wire. the arches mirror my hoop house arches but when I made mine, I sprayed them black so they looked like black pipe.  So I made smaller raised beds and raised the arches between two of them, putting one of the arches on a raised bed that Jimmy made, so it's up in the air.  On it I have run my very favorite Small Pie Pumpkins.

Just recently we finally got almost all of the vines out of all the beds, except some roots.  We bought each other out door seating when we found it on sale, and were glad to let it be our gifts to one another.  It's nice benches and rockers and we placed them around the path, for resting places.  So little by little, it is finally looking like a garden once again.

As a blessed gift from God, Jimmy noticed that our gas station had replaced their lighting with new LED's and were discarding their heavy outdoor glass lamp covers.24 of them.  Since they were discarded, they were glad for us to take them away, not knowing how we would used them.  I began to wish I could come up with some outdoor light without risking the electric wires and water danger.  And I began to wonder if the dollar store solar lights would charge underneath  the glass domes, if I turned them upside down. They would seal out most water and would be very low to the ground.  We tried it, it worked, and now there is light all around the garden.

  So for the change, I want to put up some wonderful pictures of the progress so far.  

This is the beginning of a raised bed that is where the pine tree was.  This year I planted cucumbers, a large pumpkin, and some ornamental gourds that can sprawl over the brick wall.  Next year it will be a hillside raised bed. like the one across from it.  Still under progress, but I hope to put up the way it's all filled in in my next post.  That's all for now.

What a way to Prink the Back Yard!