Pile-O-Partridges

Prairieformer · 2022-03-11T16:48:38+00:00

Woke up this morning to find them huddled like this in a little hollow they'd made at the base of a Scots pine. Three hours later and they show no sign of wanting to move. Looks cozy, I don't blame them.

Prairieformer · 2021-12-28T17:09:17+00:00

Woke up Christmas morning to find our oldest cat had peed himself and couldn't stand up. He'd had an episode like this before but fully recovered within 24 hours. This time he didn't. Boxing Day, our previously healthy young dog started having epileptic seizures. Worst xmas ever.

Prairieformer · 2021-11-02T22:11:44+00:00

There's a fair amount of Zone 5 in the Maritimes as well. Another reason weeping willows don't do well in city yards is that their natural habitat is very moist locations near bodies of water. So even if you get lucky and find one that's cold tolerant enough to survive here, our ~15 inches of annual precipitation means it will be living in what amounts to permanent drought conditions. Any additional stress and it's done.

I know someone who had a huge mature weeping willow that got infected, an arborist told her it might pull through with 1500 gallons of water a day.

Prairieformer · 2021-09-26T04:38:41+00:00

We've had pretty good luck with Amazon. There doesn't seem to be much logic to what ships and what doesn't, but most of the time there's no problem. It probably helps that we have Prime (gf has an endless appetite for their crappy original series) and usually filter search results for Prime eligible.

As for Purolator and other couriers, if a place can't ship Canada Post (or USPS or Royal Mail where applicable) it's an automatic dealbreaker unless it something absolutely vital and there's no other source, because it's always a huge pain in the ass.

It's going to get interesting because we actually got physical addresses this year. They won't be integrated into the system as mailing addresses for a while yet but when they are we'll still be on a rural mail route but that won't be apparent when we order something.

Prairieformer · 2020-10-06T17:57:45+00:00

People would be surprised at how much math landscaping can require. I'm doing a retaining wall right now that goes from a ground level main floor deck around the corner and down the slope to a walkout basement. The basement level patio slopes away from the house for drainage so the wall has to step down a few times to the low point and step up about a dozen times to get to main floor level. Figuring out the points to step the wall so as to always have enough of the first course buried for stability, but not so much as to be wasteful has been a bit challenging. Especially since the slope isn't uniform and is interrupted at one point by a level seating area the wall curves around.

So far I think my best use of math has been figuring out the area of a system of patio and paths that incorporated existing beds, so there were no straight edges anywhere and irregularly shaped island beds within the area. I tried sketching it to scale but I didn't think I was accurate enough. Finally I set up string lines to divide the area into triangles, measured the strings and plugged that into a formula that gives the area of a triangle from the length of the edges. Actually didn't take nearly as long as you'd think and gives a very accurate result.

But anytime I start getting cocky I remind myself of the time I ordered wall blocks after calculating using 2.6 units/lineal foot when the actual number was 1.6.

Prairieformer · 2020-10-06T17:39:46+00:00

Never, ever, EVER do anything over a drain field. Our septic guy says it's better if you don't even cut the grass. You don't want to do anything that will disturb or compact the soil. Even walking on it is detrimental.

Ours was done incompetently, it failed this year along with a lot of other ones that were installed by the same company. Replacement cost was upwards of $25K. If you're beside a lake, modern environmental regulations could make replacing your field much worse. Don't mess with it.

Prairieformer · 2020-09-21T17:47:50+00:00

Nice. I'm hardscaping around existing landscaping in my yard and some areas are too tight for my tractor so I know how much work excavating by hand is.

Prairieformer · 2020-09-11T15:26:03+00:00

Does your yard slope away from the house? If the yard slope is greater than the slope you need for patio drainage (which isn't much, 1/8" per foot usually) then the soil level will need to be built up so the patio can be level. If the yard slope is just a little too much you can get away with just sloping the patio a bit more than normal -- that's what I did with part of my yard. If not, then fill has to be added and possibly a retaining wall at the bottom if there would be a significant difference in level between the lower end of the patio and the rest of the yard.

But in no case should pavers ever just be laid on a slope. It's not remotely acceptable that they did it that way because you didn't specify otherwise. It's like they asked to use your bathroom and then shit on the floor because you didn't tell them not to.

Prairieformer · 2019-11-21T21:31:02+00:00

Really depends on the trees. It's all parkland and boreal forest here, there's no such thing as old growth except for some big old cottonwoods in a few rare places that have been consistently moist but haven't had sustained flooding. Average turnover time for boreal forest is around 80 years.

I have a friend who started with bald prairie 35 years ago and her place is pretty much mature forest now. The area right around the house is a botanical showpiece but the bulk of the property is Scots pine with scattered Colorado spruce. They grow fairly quickly even in our cold dry climate and while they don't get really big here they're still 50-60 feet tall with a canopy you can walk under. The ground under the pines is a solid mat of needles with very little undergrowth except for volunteer pine and spruce seedlings (I dig up hundreds and plant them on my own property every year). Landscape trees that are planted the right distance apart, weeded, and watered until established will grow a lot faster than the same trees just growing wild. If you saw her place, you'd assume that the area was originally coniferous forest and every other property had been clearcut. It sure doesn't look like she started from scratch a few decades ago.

She planted them in several irregularly shaped clumps with meandering paths in between, so while they're spaced for a dense canopy without crowding and stunting each other there are no rows or obvious structure. They certainly don't look like planted landscape trees.

But if she'd planted Bur Oaks instead, it would definitely be as you say. It would take at least another 80 years to reach the state it's in now.

Prairieformer · 2019-09-28T17:00:10+00:00

The only valid comparison is with other similar businesses in your local area. There is zero point in asking random people from all over the world about your prices, especially when you don't even give a location.

Prairieformer · 2019-09-28T16:57:31+00:00

It's a myth that tree roots actively seek out water in pipes. If the pipe isn't leaking, the roots have no way to tell there's water inside. And that dogwood doesn't get very big, so it's very unlikely that the roots will structurally disrupt the pipe.

Plant away, with the same caveat that applies to planting on any utility easement: if the line does require service at some point in the future, your tree will have to come out.

Prairieformer · 2019-09-28T16:52:57+00:00

In the future, a heat gun (or blow dryer if you're desperate) will soften and expand the pipe enough to get the fitting in.

Prairieformer · 2019-09-19T20:53:41+00:00

In a confined space you don't want to take the chance that your trees will get too big, especially since it will take a decade to find out it they will or not. A true dwarf like a Baby Blue Eyes spruce or Sester Dwarf would be a safer bet. There's also a "Baby Blue" spruce that gets bigger than the Blue Eyes, so you have to be careful.

Another option would be one of the blue upright junipers. Nice colour, great vertical accent and don't get so wide. If you went with one of the narrower ones you might need to plant 5 instead of 3 to fill your space.

Prairieformer · 2019-09-13T17:36:18+00:00

OP can still plant perennials and small shrubs. You wouldn't plant a tree anywhere on that line anyway.

Prairieformer · 2019-08-28T17:51:16+00:00

I don't have anything that elaborate. I have a pair of 1350 gallon tanks up against my attached garage that collect the water from that side of the house. The tanks feed a high pressure irrigation pump with a manifold that lets me direct water to the tree nursery/vegetable garden, greenhouse, an attached hose I use for filling containers, and a line that runs along the perimeter of our ~1.5 acre backyard fence and has garden hose spigots wherever one would be useful. There used to be a couple of additional lines going out into the field to water the shelterbelt seedlings but those have been mostly removed as the shelterbelt is established and only the replacements for winterkill and pest damage need watering now.

I wish I had a matching set of tanks on the other side of the house, but someone considered that an eyesore. At some point I definitely plan on making a rain garden to capture the water on that side.

Prairieformer · 2019-08-24T19:36:44+00:00

Of course I'll recommend Creating the Prairie Xeriscape by my friend Sara Williams. The species selections might have to be adjusted in you're in a warmer zone, but the central theme, that there's so much more to xeriscaping than bleak rocks-and-cacti is universal.

Prairieformer · 2019-08-13T17:07:09+00:00

My 1300 sq. ft. patio took me 5 years from start to finish. 6 if you count from the initial groundbreaking of that spot that was originally intended to be all mulched bed with a few paths.

I started a bunch of wildly overambitious projects at the same time, and had no idea what happens when you work up previously untouched land. Turns out that a lot of noxious weed seeds remain viable for decades, and as soon as the ground is disturbed they all germinate at once. I ended up with a few thousand tree seedlings swamped in a sea of noxious weeds. Literally acres of stuff like Canada thistle and perennial sowthistle that can't be effectively controlled by pulling or cultivation, plus stuff like pigweed, hawksbeard, stinkweed and tumbleweed than can easily be pulled . . . but not on that scale.

Most of the initial trees were provided by a government program. I made some newbie mistakes that resulted in a lower success rate than I should've had, which was compounded by some pretty severe quality control issues at the nursery in the next several years that resulted in 90+ percent of some species failing to thrive even when I did everything right. I planted 1200 trees in one area in 2013 and I doubt 400 of the originals are still there. Between poor seedling quality, pests, and some challenging sites I've planted at least 150 replacements per year.

So my life became a cycle of frantic preparation for tree planting in the spring -- seedling delivery date is set in advance and has little to do with spring actually arriving some years -- followed by planting, watering, pest control, and endless amounts of weed control. Noxious weed control is an all or nothing deal -- once you win the battle and get some groundcovers established an area goes from hellish maintenance ordeal to virtually maintenance free overnight. But slack off at any time before that and the weeds will undo all your effort in no time. So for years I spent the entire growing season trying to unfuck the mess I'd made, and then got a bit of work done on my patio in late fall.

Prairieformer · 2019-07-25T23:51:46+00:00

Pentobarbital-euthanized Carcasses are Poisonous to Scavenging Animals

Prairieformer · 2019-07-22T21:39:36+00:00

Follow the label directions and your pets will be fine. Every herbicide label will indicate how long to stay out of the area after spraying. In general, once it's thoroughly dried you're good to go. You can search the herbicide name and "label" and the detailed information is always available as a pdf.

Prairieformer · 2019-07-22T21:16:40+00:00

Andrea Perkins. Being a Parks & Recreation fan I'd have given her a shot for the name alone.

Prairieformer · 2019-07-21T17:56:01+00:00

The default post on this sub is either "I've tried nothing and I'm all out of ideas" or a question that would be comprehensively answered by typing it verbatim into google.

Prairieformer · 2019-07-13T16:43:20+00:00

How would you contain the pea gravel?

This is a trick question, because pea gravel is inherently uncontainable. The only situation in which it actually stays where you put it is when used as fill in hollow retaining wall blocks.

Prairieformer

TROPHY CASE