My Big Epic Project continued

Okay so I haven't posted in a while, but you know how summer gets, all crazy busy!  Its time for an update on my Big Epic Project.  Which is getting rid of all the buckthorn in my wooded yard.  Here are some before and after examples of an area that  I have mostly cleared out by the side of the garage.  

 

Before



Before

And here are the after pictures!
 

As you can see it looks pretty bare now, but that is why it is necessary to get rid of the buckthorn because nothing else can compete with it over time and all the native plants will die out.  I did plant a few baby trees, bushes and flowers that were volunteers from other parts of the yard after I took these pictures. 

Adventure Passes

There is nothing I like better than something that is free, especially when we are on a budget. Here in the Twin Cities we have museum adventure passes that give free passes to museums through the library system.  This year we have been trying to go to several of these, since it is the last year for the passes.  Recently we went to the Eloise Butler Wildflower Garden.  The garden is free, but with the museum pass one can get a free guidebook which has descriptions and drawings of all the plants at the garden.

The best part for me was that I was able to identify a plant that is in the woods around my house.  The plant looks similar to sumac but it isn't quite right.  I happily found out that it is Red Elderberry, a flowering woodland shrub.

We also happened to be there when the showy lady slippers were blooming, what a treat!  My daughter loved the flowers.  I've added links to the Museum Adventure Pass and Eloise Butler Wildflower Garden below.

http://www.melsa.org/MuseumAdventurePass/index.cfm

http://www.minneapolisparks.org/default.asp?PageID=1355

Colorful Gender Neutral Nursery

Here is the finished nursery.  We already had the dresser, which has been in the family for quite some time.  The crib and the changing table we bought at a garage sale.  The pictures above the dresser were from an old calendar and I framed them in Ikea frames. 

 

I really love the cabinet above the changing table. I had it left over from when I switched out the vanity mirror in the bathroom. It works great to store baby medicine, lotions and diaper cream.  I love the rocking chair and I'm thinking about how I can fit it into my living room now that she's older.

 My friend Beth cross-stitched this picture and it is hanging next to the floating shelf.

The ceiling is vaulted, so we bought this hanging light from Ikea which works great.  My daughter loved looking at it when she was young.

DIY Baby Mobile

I made this cute mobile for my daughter's nursery.  The spheres were made by using a round scrapbooking punch with scalloped edges and cutting out scrapbooking cardstock.  Each sphere used six of these and they were folded in half and taped together with double sided tape.  I used blue ribbon to connect the spheres to the mobile.  Then used two different sized embroidery hoops and painted them the same color as the blue on the nursery walls.  I connected the hoops and hung the mobile with fishing line.  

Front Flower Garden: Before and After

We bought our house 3 years ago and this is what the front flower garden looked like at the time.  It seemed a little bare to me, so I've been adding more flowers and I've filled it out a bit. 

Before

 


Before

Before 

 
I moved the viburnum bush out of the garden, planted several lilies, some irises, daffodils, bee balm and divided several plants.  It was a bit difficult to get to the hose so I built some steps out of stone, and I added a walking path out of stone.  I restained the fence last year and I really like the way the sedum looks growing against it.  Currently the coreopsis, lilies and bee balm are blooming.



After

After



After



After

Painting a block patterned wall



The Post-its worked great to keep the colors straight

I designed this baby nursery a couple years ago, before we had our daughter. We chose not to find out the sex of our baby, but I knew that I wanted a colorful stimulating space.  We painted the whole room yellow first.  My father-in-law and husband did most of the painting.


Then I incorporated several colors by tying them together on a focal wall in a square grid pattern.  Next I painted a chair rail height block of green, blue and pink on each of the other walls.  Now I know some may think, what, there is pink in a gender neutral nursery?!  But my husband suggested it after I was initially thinking of using peach. 

It wasn't that hard to paint either, just a lot of measuring and leveling.  The squares don't have to be exactly square to get the look.  The spacing for the edging was the width of the painting tape.  I also made a template in the paint program on my computer to see how the colors would look all together and make adjustments before actually painting. 
 

This pink was too light so we ended up redoing it

DIY Grapevine Wreath

I was cutting down some Buckthorn when I noticed a bunch of grapevines and I decided to try my hand at making my own wreath.  I took several long sections that were still pliable and wrapped them into a circle, then I took a few new growth pieces to bind the whole thing together.  It was very easy.  This was a much needed project for me since I still had my Christmas wreath hanging up.  Pretty embarassing!

My BIG EPIC project

My big project that I have undertaken this year is getting rid of invasive Buckthorn from the woods around my house.  Buckthorn is literally trying to take over the woods and in some areas it grows so thick together that it has pushed out almost all the native species and can be hard on the other mature trees. 

Woods thick with buckthorn

I have been able to kill some of the Buckthorn by pulling out small ones by the roots as well as using a hand clippers and a ratcheting clippers. However when one is cut down a dozen will sprout up in its place. So to keep that from happening I spray Roundup on the stumps, killing the roots.  For the seedlings springing up in the grass I use Ortho Weed-B-Gon, which is awesome because it works on several other weeds too.  Also if you are into a more organic approach I have heard that pounding a copper nail into the stump will kill a Buckthorn plant.  I haven't tried this so if anyone has good results, let me know.

So this spring I decided if I was serious about getting rid of the Buckthorn, then I'd better have my husband teach me how to use the chainsaw.  It is not the easiest thing to try.  There are a lot of safety issues and you can get very dirty, though it is a great workout.  I was finally feeling pretty good about my chainsawing skills and then last week I made the chain fall off twice in a row.  Oh well, a mistake learned and a new chain and I'm back in business.

Looks like I'll be at this a while, but I'll be sure to post some updates as well as a few more pictures...