Category Archives: Garden

Anything from any garden.

A Compost Corner for Branches

Garden, Sustainability, , , ,

DSC07392 There is a little nook in the fence where we planted a crepe myrtle, overgrown here.  It conceals the nook.

DSC07445I had stored shrub trimmings from several months ago  in this little nook, and the leaves fell off.  I put most of the bare sticks on the other side of the fence, where I am saving them to chip into mulch for other plants.   DSC07428  I trimmed up the crepe myrtle and  other walk-side vegetation.  Before I could save it into this compost corner, for another round of composting, and mulch making,  the city hauled it away as brush pick-up a week and a half later.

DSC07444 Some sticksare left to toss to the other side.

DSC07527 Done, you can see a residue of the thick leaf compost or mulch, which fell off the branches.

DSC07526 The soil is actually getting thicker from this process.  As we read and write, more greenery and shrubs continue to grow.  Dead leaves and branches continue to decay back into the soil, releasing their life-giving  nutrients.

This mulched crepe myrtle has grown better than its sibling crepe myrtle planted at the same time.  It may be because of this mulch,  or due to that fact that the roots of a tree that had lived here, are decaying and releasing their nutrients as well, or both that this crepe myrtle grew faster than its sibling.  The smaller crepe myrtle is also growing well.  (No photo vantage point permits this comparison.)

Nearly two weeks after the city picked up  most of the brush, most of the leaves were dry on any remaining freshly cut sticks, and, after pulling off the dried leaves,  I carried those sticks to the back yard, along with the aged sticks from my pile, where I will chip them up to use elsewhere as vegetation sustaining mulch.

I learned three things here:

  1. Leaves make a compost mulch
  2. Branches can be reserved for chipping
  3. Mulch and compost make vegetation grow well
  4. The leaves dry and fall off the branches in about one month, so the branches do not have to be stored for  many months before chipping

August Garden, Overgrowth Removal

Garden, , , ,

DSC07392  The crepe myrtle, yellow flowering bush, decorative asparagus, and bougainvillea in front of the fence are so overgrown that they are taking over the sidewalk.  One of my great uncles who moved to Texas around the turn of the century loved it because, “Everything grew so well.”  It is true that many things grow very well, and then, to keep the plants within bounds, one needs to cut them back.

DSC07442 And so I cut them back.

DSC07440 You can see some of the cutting, as well as a clearer sidewalk.  It was like cutting a tunnel through the green.

DSC07441 This smaller crepe myrtle has also been cut back to size.  A lot of trimmings from several bushes lie to the left of this bush.

This is gardening by removal.  This is rather like weeding in the air.  The timing may be poor, but, I had to uncover the sidewalk.  Other bushes were simply too big for their setting.   These bushes  will continue to grow.