Front Yard post-grass removal

Front Yard post-grass removal
Originally uploaded by stephannie_t.

We received the plants from Las Pilitas -- apparently all of them except for the poppies -- I haven't been able to go through them all yet to doublecheck. They were in cardboards boxes, cushioned by crumbled newspaper, with their roots/soil bagged, and their i.d. tags in the baggies (which is why I've not gone through them all since I unpacked them last night).

The mulch is ordered (from www.willsestatemaintenance.com) and should arrive by Friday. I updated the order for the gravel and rocks through Sepulveda Building Materials -- that should arrive Saturday a.m.

Excitement!

Frontyard grass removal and native plant order

After going back and forth about whether or not to RoundUp, we hired a crew to dig up our sod, deciding the risks inherent in disturbing our soil and the probable longer upcoming weed battle was worth it over using herbicides. Part of the decision was influenced by the fact we have very little weeds and grass coming up out of our fruit tree mounds.



We visited Sepulveda Building Materials yesterday and chose some rocks. We also thought we'd ordered our gravel, smaller rocks etc but they didn't get put on the invoice (they were closing, we didn't want to keep them any later, so dashed off without going over the receipt (even though it seemed really low) until we got in the car) so I'll be calling Monday morning.

Anyway, a lot of our mulching will be with gravel and rocks; the rest will be with shredded redwood ('gorilla hair'). Hopefully, with all the mulching, we'll be able to keep up with weed control until our natives are established. I think I've found a source of bulk mulch (getting it by the bag just won't work, we'd need way too many bags; as it is we probably will get around 5 cubic feet). But if anyone knows of a good source in Los Angeles that delivers, please leave a comment!

I also place my plant order with Las Pilitas -- here's the list:

Achillea millefolium rosea Island Pink x3
Achillea millefolium arenicola
Achillea millefolium californica
Arctostaphylos La Panza
Arctostaphylos manzanita_x_densiflora Austin Griffiths Manzanita
Arctostaphylos silvicola Ghostly Manzanita
Arctostaphylos pechoensis Margarita's Joy
Arctostaphylos patula platyphylla Julian Manzanita
Asclepias fascicularis x2
Calystegia macrostegia
Diplacus aurantiacus australis Ramona
Diplacus longiflorus Topanga monkey flower
Diplacus puniceus Otay monkey flower
Eriogonum parvifolium
Eschscholzia californica maritima
Gnaphalium californicum x2
Lupinus excubitus
Monardella villosa x2
Monardella macrantha x3
Penstemon heterophyllus heterophyllus
Penstemon Margarita BOP x2
Penstemon spectabilis : x2
Salvia Celestial Blue
Salvia clevelandii Alpine Cleveland sage
Salvia Gracias
Zauschneria californica Catalina x2
Zauschneria californica Ghostly Red x2

The plants should be shipped Monday so we're planning on planting them next weekend. The rocks etc are going to be delivered next Saturday morning; I'm hoping to arrange for mulch by then as well. (Also, the same crew will be coming by to remove the bird of paradise, hibiscus and the other shrubs Saturday.)

Fruit Trees

This past weekend, in between the Superbowl 10k run (including about 1 mile to and from) and Mel's Superbowl party I went to a free fruit tree and rose seminar at a local nursery that I'd actually never visited.

The seminar was awesome, focusing mostly on fruit trees (the main love of the speaker/teacher, Thomas) and what varieties to choose for our area and how to plant and prune them. Thomas was a wild man with the pruners. I ended up purchasing some more trees this week from that nursery, including one he'd pruned (I figure I can refer to it for reassurance when I get queasy about how much I'm pruning).

We'll end up with five 'clumps' of multiple trees in one hole -- the two figs, four apples (new ones are Anna and Beverly Hills), two peaches and two apricots (Gold Kist apricot and May Pride and Babcock peaches), four plums (Santa Rosa and Burgundy added), and four nectarines (Goldmine and one other whose name escapes me).

We're planning on planting this weekend. Our bareroot trees arrived the other day as well. They are smaller than the majority of the trees in pots, so they'll get planted south of the bigger trees (a tidbit I picked up at the seminar).