TinaMcG's Blog

Running to Stand Still -- ARGH!
Mar 8, 2008 | 4:45 PM PST

We have a water problem on our property. It isn't getting to the house, but it's going all over where we don't want it. Apparently, our three acres is handling the drainage from the open, barren 25 acres just to the north of us. New "acreage" subdivision -- no one plants anything -- no surprise about all the water, I guess.

But we have to deal with it, and to that end, we've talked to engineers. Everyone wants $2000 to shoot elevations and do a grading plan. I know this is the most sensible approach, but i'm not sure the problem is so severe as to spend all that for a plan. So we keep talking to other companies that deal with this sort of thing, and we wait for the spring rains.

I've been rereading all my tree and perennial books this winter, researching the best woody plants for Kansas. I now have a long list of things I'll be buying, and it's amazing how many of them are wetland plants: willows, baldcypress, alders, viburnums for wet spots, etc.  I'm even shopping for rushes and horsetails for the drainage ditches scattered around the property.

I can design other peoples' landscapes. It's my own that stumps me.

Starting from Scratch
Mar 1, 2008 | 1:11 PM PST

It took nine years to get our suburban Chicago garden to the point where I wasn't always looking at it as a problem that needed solving. Then we got an offer we could not refused and we packed up and moved to Kansas.

I had always told my husband that I would only move from our beautiful half acre in Illinois if we could buy two or three acres, so that's what we got -- three acres in south Johnson County, KS. We thought it was a blank slate. Little did we know it would take a ton of cash, and even some tears, to get it into clean-slate shape. We still have a lot of work to do before we can plant anything, even after trucking in 250 cubic yards of topsoil and compost one day last fall.

I gave up my marketing consulting business when we moved to Kansas in April 2007. That was part of the plan anyway, when I went back to college to study horticulture in 2004. I would get my landscape design certification, quit my marketing business, and do something I really loved: design gardens for people. I ended up finishing my certification in Kansas last fall, and working for clients will have to wait, as I deal with the mega-project that is our own plot of land. If I hadn't studied plant sciences in college, I can't imagine trying to tackle this mess. We have no topsoil. We are in a low area and we deal with water and mud on a regular basis. We're on a septic system. Major regrading needed to be done last fall, to control the movement of water across our property. I discovered I knew just enough about grading to have a stimulating conversation about it -- but not enough to solve our water problems -- so we're calling in an engineer. My husband is freaking out at the costs.

In the meantime, I've joined the Johnson County Extension Master Gardeners program and will get my MG credentials later this year, after completing the volunteer-hours requirement. The idea of volunteering my time to present research-based information to people really appealed to me because there is so much misinformation out there, costing gardeners a lot of time and money, and leading to the premature death of many lawns and gardens.