This is the slope from my patio, past the bird feeders, and coming down to the garage door. It’s steepish, and the area has a washing problem due to compacted soil, and nothing growing there. That’s because birds, lightweight as they are, are milling constantly after seed. And squirrels run up and down here all day; deer come to forage at night.

I’ve put in this little wall of concrete cobblestones (with gaps to shelter toads and salamanders), which is making the dirt behind it level off, while the angle at the patio edge gets sharper. That’s a miniature version of the same erosion patterns that eventually form waterfalls. The water rushes over the edge, but is slowed as it spreads across the “flatlands”. Erosion is concentrated at the higher elevation, in effect the rock shelf, because there’s a boundary being created by the two rates of flow.

But slowing the flow is what’s wanted, to control drainage, to keep dirt from being carried into the storm sewers, and to keep the garden from losing its topsoil and mulch. The next step is to dig out a space for steppingstones, down from the patio, and to plant some good anchoring plants, limiting the creature traffic to the center. Then I’ll fill that part in with pea gravel to filter the water downwards.

 

 

The next phase. Black hardwood mulch is the only kind I was able to buy. Gardening supplies are off this year, presumably affected by the pandemic. The black mulch looks good, but it will decompose faster than pine nuggets. In the way of things, I bought less pea gravel than I need, so that will take more filling in. 

 

 

Mostly done. At the upper level is a strobilanthes plant, two Blue Rug junipers, two Japanese painted ferns, and one heuchera whose roots were all in among one of the ferns, so I had to dig them both. The lower level has four divisions of a fern I lifted from another of my beds. I bought the junipers and the strobilanthes, and shopped my garden for the rest.

 

 

Sometimes your garden gives you bouquets. This pretty combo made itself: yellow feverfew and centaurea, white with a pink center.

 

One of the super-dark burgundy scabiosas, a budded flower getting ready to open.

 

 

These bright yellow mushrooms popped up in several places. Of ones in my guidebook, they most resemble chanterelles.