soaphouse's Blog

Creek Progress and More...
Jan 24, 2008 | 2:41 PM PST
Tags: creek , clean , vines , privet , arbor , green giant , weeping willow

Its been a great couple of days in the garden! Yesterday, I spent the entire afternoon after I got off of work, working on the creek. It was very satisfying as I was finally able to venture to the other side of the creek! I thought that would never happen. Especially when you look at where all this started:

In case you are wondering where the creek is in that shot...its to the left of the fence, under all the brush! Its very encouraging to look back at this to see how far I have come. Sometimes it seems like I will never finish this, but when I look at how far I have come, I know I will! Here are some current shots of the creek:

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This afternoon I worked on getting the brush to the curb. The hardest part of this was that all of the brush had to travel over the creek and then over the fence then through the gate, then all the way to the curb! I was very thankful for my galoshes. Needless to say, Privet is now a very bad word in my world! I was online the other day browsing nurseries and one had gallon privet for sale for $19.95!!! I could make a fortune, just sell what I am ripping out :) Why can't something amazing be invasive...like peonies or something! But, I digress...

I did place another plant order for the "bones" of this project:

• 
  3 Green Giant Arborvities (for a fast growing evergreen screen on the other side of the creek at our property line.)
  
• 2 Weeping Willows (one for each bank side to help with erosion)
• 1 Colorado Blue Spruce (which is actually for the area in the back where we took out the maple)

I also found a lot of volunteer wax mahonias back there that I will transplant so that they can thrive and be enjoyed. Also, one nandina that I will dig up for a container in the front yard. And, some nice woodland ferns that I uncovered and will hopefully do better now that they are not crowded by privet! Gotta love free plant suprises :)

Its just so exciting to see this all coming together!

On another note, my arbor came in the mail last night and I got it all assembled and installed:

On the left side, I planted a honeysuckle vine of some sort that was passed down from my mother. I am not sure of the variety. It is desiduous and had really neat seed pods in the fall that hang down. On the right side of this arbor, I plan to put out miniature gourd vine seeds. I think if this works...it will be really cool to see the gourds hanging down through the arbor!

YEAH!