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hoyess

New to this, need some direction

hoyess
16 years ago

OK a bit of history. Three years ago we moved to our country property (2 1/3 acres) which had no landscaping but LOTS of grass and it backed onto a fencerow that borders what we call here "the sinkhole". It is about 2 acres that is full of water in spring, sometimes fall if rainy and bone dry in summer. I started gardening the way I knew how around the house, it is more a "garden" than natural -- lots of ornamental shrubs and trees, I wasn't really thinking native at the time. Mind you I like it.

In year three I started clearing the massive grapevines, raspberry cane and garlic mustard from along the back property line as these were very invasive and kept creeping into our lawn plus I needed to remove the old rusted farm fence as it was mostly falling down and a hazard to the kids. In doing so I "rescued' several native trees that were just smothered (some were even twisted from the vines). After it was cleared what I had was:

-a hawthorn grove that we maintain as is but I have cleared all the garlic mustard growing underneath

--a wide open space with one ash (not sure what kind yet), some black cherry, and Ceanothus sanguineus, prunus virginiana, some native shrubs I haven't id's yet, all cleared of grapevine along with some manitoba maple saplings which sorry I keep removing as they are very invasive too

-- still an acre of grass in the backyard.

So off I went tree shopping. In the far back I put in some sugar maples and red maples although now I'm sorry I did pick "cultivars" as I wasn't aware that I should not have. I also put in some white pine, Canadian hemlock and some dogwood (again sorry a couple cultivars), serviceberry (cultivar again) and rhus typhina (along with a couple Bailtiger I put in a lot of the native staghorn sumac).

In the lawn I put some ornamental up front - red obelisk beech, Chanticleer pear, ornamental crab apples. Towards the back I put some natives -- tulip tree, Kentucky Coffee Tree, cornus alternifolia, Larix laricina, cercis canadensis. I also put in a few shrubs not native to our area.

Now I have spent the winter reading about trees and flora of the Carolinian Forest. I plan on adding more native trees this spring and focusing on adding many native shrubs but since this is the back of our yard is there anything wrong with adding a few non-natives? or cultivars? And I haven't yet dealt with the perennial layer. What should I include that will keep out the garlic mustard and raspberry cane. After all that work, I don't want them to invade the area again. I have added some bergenia, ajuga, sweet woodruff, various hostas and pachysandra in small patches but am wondering if I should remove any of these?

Thanks all for some direction, any and all suggestions are more than welcome.

Sharon

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