I had meant to post entries more frequently to this blog but "life is what happens when you're busy making other plans" (!) 

We met with Marcus, our landscape architect, last night.  He looked over the cover crop and the baby plants that we have growing in the back yard.   Some of the baby plants did not fare so well in the hot dry weather, and we talked about moving them to a shadier part of the back yard so they would have a chance to recover.  I didn't have a chance to move them yet, but it was cloudy, cool, and rainy all day today, which had to be helpful.

In our discussion with Marcus about the cover crop, I found out that I was mistaken when I wrote the plan was to overturn the cover crop that is growing right now and plant another this summer.   Marcus reminded me that we had spoken of having two cover crops last year when we thought we would be getting an earlier start excavating the rain garden.  But, due to several delays, the biggest one being a NICOR nightmare (the story of which I will relay in a separate entry), we got a much later start than we had planned and decided to go with one cover crop before doing the permanent planting in September of this year. 

In other news, on the advice of the Village of Lombard, we are going to create a yard sign, large enough to read by folks driving by in their cars, to let people know that the cover crop is a temporary situation, to be replaced by a Rain Garden.  So, we are trying to figure out how to make this sign.   I've been looking on the internet for graphic images of rain gardens and came across this interesting piece on WordPress. 

How to Build a Rain Garden

If you have any ideas to share on making the sign, please post your suggestions as comments.   And, if you have other feedback, I welcome that too!

You've Got Mail!

We received a letter from the Village of Lombard yesterday indicating that our grass was too tall and needed to be cut back to 8".   Dave called the Village today to remind them that we went through the process last October of getting the permit, which involved Marcus providing detailed plans and a list of plants that would eventually take up permanent residence.   We are waiting to hear back from the man who will make the call on this one. 

 

In the meantime, I've been wondering about the best way to cut it back.   It's pretty tall.   How would you go from 2 feet of Rye and Oats to 8 inches?   I'm thinking about renting some goats.  :-)

 

I hope it doesn't come down to that though, because Marcus said it wouldn't be nearly as pretty if we had to cut it - it's just going to look stubbly and brown.   I wish I knew who called in the complaint so that I could explain that to them because I think they may like what it looks like less after it's cut than before.  Que sera sera (ie. whatever will be, will be -think Doris Day.)

What is a Rain Garden?

We found out about rain gardens through a web site, developed by our Landscape Architect, Marcus de la fleur, that does a beautiful job of explaining their usefulness and construction.  That web site can be found here: http://www.delafleur.com/168_Elm/06_Rain_Gdn_01.html.

It is important to note that all rain gardens do not look the same and we intend for our front-yard rain garden to have the plants grouped in such a way as to create a sense of order that will fit in with the tidy well-maintained look of our neigborhood.

Here is a nice illustration I found on the web that shows a cross-section view of a typical rain garden.

(from http://www.ofallon.org/public_documents/ofallonil_parksrec/Garden%20Club%20Rain%20Garden)