I got to work in the garden off and on almost all day yesterday. I took a lot of cut branches, palm and palmetto fronds to the street. I took some pine and oak branches to the firepit area to begin curing. I took the cut camphor and bay branches there also, for my full moon ceremony on Wednesday April 28th. I built a little bamboo fence to line the west side of my driveway. Since my ficus privacy hedge went down to the ground with the frost, that area felt so bare and open. Usually when I look out my front window, all I see is my little garden courtyard, with a wall of ficus and turk’s cap and eleagnus all around. Now when I look out, after the freeze, I see right out to the street. Which means everyone walking by can now see what’s behind my privacy hedges and into my yard. So I took a half dozen lengths of cut bamboo and made a 5 rail fence for myself.
I have another bamboo rail fence in front of the shed on the lot to the west of me. The wild grapevine has come back after the freeze and so I re-routed yards of it along the fence, to weave a wall in front of the shed. As I was pulling the thick vines out of the pine trees, I noticed some branches of eleagnus had gotten carried up the treetops with the grapevine. So there were long lines of eleagnus acting like a vine, because the grapevine had attached its tendrils to it and made it grow with it.
I let the grapevines grow and I keep them pulled off to the side so I can make them into walls when they get long enough. There is enough grapevine on the property that, anywhere I decide I want to weave a wall, I just start moving the mulch around, looking for emerging grapevine plants. I make sure they have water and sunlight, and they take off by themselves.
I dug holes for the bamboo posts with my post hole digger. I know the bamboo will rot in about 6 months, but by then the ficus will have grown back. I went around the property and collected all the wooden posts and brought them to the front. I decided not to use 4×4’s in the fence since it would disturb the ficus roots too much to be temporary.
I moved several large aloe where they’ve begun growing over the driveway. I had some waist high and chest high plants in large pots that I moved to over in front of the new fence by the driveway, and that gave another layer of privacy. I ended up with 5 horizontal rails and 2 sets of crossbars in slim bamboo. I tied it together with some jute, which will disintegrate at about the same time the bamboo drops away. It’s always perfect timing.
In honor of Earth Day, yesterday I took a little video of morning in the east garden and posted it on Facebook. It’s still a little bare in here but all the plants are coming back after the frost. This is a magical place to sit in the evening and watch the squirrels and birds at play in the mulberry and loquat trees
The mulberries had a weird spring season, they came on soon after the freeze and I got 2 pints of ripe ones, leaving the rest for the birds. As those ripened, they fell to the ground, and the critters did not eat them for some reason. The ones I ate were sweet and black. Now there is a new crop ripening out there, so I’m on Mulberry Watch the next few days.
I’d cut my yellow necklace pod bush way back, to reclaim a piece of yard about 10 feet wide by 25 feet long. I have turk’s cap and arborvitae along the back privacy fence, then the row of necklace pod in front of it. I always leave room in between them to walk. It gives me an extra trail to walk on.
So I spent a fun Earth Day playing in my yard. The rain had watered everything the day before, so I got to check on all my new cuttings. Everything is growing like crazy. My property will be back in full jungle mode in no time.
Mother Earth really knows her stuff.