bugs and diseases

here's a pic of wing watering the lawn. yesterday i noticed leafhoppers on the roses... and the hemlock is getting some brown needles. also, the lacewings are probably hatching on the rhododendron about now. i fed a tent caterpillar and a root weevil to the chickens. my poor strawberry tree and bunchberry are getting eaten by weevils.

the progression of mocked lawn

when we first moved in our lawn looked green like this. in a few months that changed entirely.

we first decided to solarize a portion so that we could replant with grass instead of weeds. but the summer last year was not too hot, and this is how it ended up... sad!



then we decided to sheet mulch the entire front yard, but first we had to dig out the grass in the middle.



then we collected cardboard for months and laid it down.



October 2007: we planted some stuff in the yard from our old p-patch, then we covered everything up with cardboard and mulch- it looked pretty nice in the beginning.




now it looks like this (but there is some ecoturf growing in the middle that you can't see yet and the wide-angle lens distorts it a bit)



suffice to say, it's not over yet! we did actually receive some compliments from neighbors in the past two days, which was nice!

bonus bunchberry

mocked yard

nobody drives by our yard without turning their head. we saw two people walk by and shake their heads. but at least it's more interesting than grass. that's why they look at it. we're creating a naturescape... everyday squirrels and crows visit the yard and dig around for grubs, earwigs, spiders, rolypolies, and occasional morel mushroom. they leave behind empty peanut shells.

we hope to encourage other birds, bees, and pollinators with our service berries, nootka roses, and mock oranges. we are the mocked yard, the mocked orange. we encourage comments~ please stop by!