Master plan progress

The other thing I did during my long weekend last weekend was plant the 31 native perennials I ordered from Prairie Nursery. They are the reason I had scheduled the days off in the first place. When I placed my orders, they gave me a shipping date, and I took time off to make sure I'd get the little plants in the ground soon after they showed up. Prairie Nursery was right on time, and the plants arrived Thursday afternoon.

Twenty of them went in this corner, where I've had a tarp laying since February.

The grass weeds around it have greened up, but the area under the tarp was mostly dead.

I don't think creeping Charlie ever really dies, and there were plenty of its runners still in the ground, but the area was definitely clear enough for planting in.

I had a bunch of brown packing paper sitting around, so almost every plant got its own piece of brown paper mulch.

In between other scheduled activities, I only had time the first day to get about half of the plants in the ground.

Here it is finished up.

I didn't have enough pine bark mulch, but that's okay because the uncovered part is on enough of a slope that the mulch will just slide off anyway. I used some rocks along the fence and in various points to help hold the paper down.

This corner has Sweet Joe Pye Weed, Tall Joe Pye Weed, Maidenhair Fern, Wild Geranium and Bishop's Cap. I have no illusion of keeping the area mulched like this. I just wanted to give the little plants a fighting chance and keep them from getting choked by weeds right away. I might throw on some grass the next time I mow as well. Speaking of mowing, this is one part of the yard I hope to never mow again.

If you were paying attention, you've realized that I still had 11 perennials left after filling the corner. Those 11 plants were destined for this sunnier slope.

As you can see, I never got around to tarping this area, and it was covered in bright green grass. Almost entirely grass, too, which is very strange for my backyard. By this point of the weekend, I was worn out and I decided to try something radical. It might be the stupidest thing I've ever done, but I'm the kind of person who learns from my mistakes so, at worst, it'll be a learning experience.

My experience in the other corner had already made me realize that I couldn't really mulch a slope, and I'd run out of paper, so rather than getting rid of all the sod, I just dug holes for the plants, and stuck them in.

from below

from above

I realize it'll be a pain to trim around them for awhile, but it's already a pain to mow this slope, so I've just traded one pain for another. And the second pain should eventually go away once the plants have grown to their full sizes.

This slope has Butterflyweed, Purple Poppy Mallow, Rattlesnake Master, Blue False Indigo and Purple Prairie Clover.

I'm hoping all of these perennials survive. I really want less grass and more worthwhile plants in my yard. It was around 70 degrees last weekend when I planted them, but since then our temperatures have dropped. The past few days have been rainy and about 40 degrees. The little perennials have definitely had enough water, and I don't think it's been cold enough to harm them. I'll have to go check on them when it dries out a bit, which will hopefully be Tuesday.

I've got one more shipment from Prairie Nursery on its way. It's not as many plants, and they won't be here for a couple weeks, but they're going to be exciting!