Taking Care of the Yard

Tasks are listed in roughly the order of when we should do them.

Things to buy

Right now, what we need most are:

• a gardening spade
• gardening gloves (ideally multiple pairs)
• shears

We may also want:

• a garden fork
• a trowel

Sometime before the fall, we’ll also want to get a rake.

Ideally, it’d be nice to buy these locally. The Portland Nursery is on 50th and Division and should hopefully have what we need:

Failing that, we could also buy tools online. This random page I searched has recommendations

Dealing with the Roses

Some of our roses are getting out of control. Any of the roses the are stretching into the sidewalk should be pruned back. We could also consider trellising them: roses are flexible and are willing to be bent into shapes. It might be cool to run them along the fence. I won’t be broken-hearted if we just prune them though.

Clearing and cleaning our walkway

The walkway is all dirty and covered with debris! We should clear & wash it off, and weed the dandilions growing in the cracks or spilling out into the path.

Weeding

We have a number of invasive weeds, and removing them is a good first step towards being responsible stewards to the local ecosystem. We got a report listing all the invasive weeds present so we can start to deal with them.

Armenian Blackberry

We have invasive blackberries growing on the southeast corner outside of our fence. They’re still pretty small so it’d be good to get rid of them now while it’ll be easier. The “basic manual control” method from this resource seems best:

English ivy

This is growing through our shrub (it’s all over the neighbor’s tree, so that’s probably where it came from). Per this resource, “hand-pulling combined with loosening the soil with a shovel, cultivator or weeding fork will work on most stands of ivy.”

Norway Maple Seedlings

The two trees above our yard are invasive norway maples. We’re of course not going to cut down the trees, but we should prevent any saplings from growing. I’ve seen at least several growing along the west and south side of the fence. We should “pull seedlings when soil is moist”.

Traveler’s Joy (Clematis Vitalba)

Another vine-y plant, alow growing along the west and south side. We should “use gloves to pull up the entire vine” and “either pull or dig roots from the ground”. The remains should be composted off-site.

Robert Geranium

Also growing behind the house. We should pull these up when they’re not in seed.