we live in a system
(midwest.social)
solarpunk memesIt’s nice to be in nature, but in that top pic they should trim those trees away from encroaching on that roof. Looks like it could cause a lot of problems. Rodents, insects, exterior damage.
Emo system
Edo system
"How many chimneys do we need?"
"Yes"
We all need to give grapes of wrath a read again.
Makes me think of mcmansionhell.com
Years ago I tried very hard for the upper picture. The staff at the nursery store all laughed and said I'd need to soak the ground with complete kill herbicide for a year and then plant wild flowers after everything was completely dead in the window between the herbicide half life and weeds taking back over. Then it would require maintenance herbicide to keep native plants from killing off the wild flowers.
They were right. A year of tilling, planting wildflower seeds, and watering gave me a bumper crop of the nastiest 7' tall thorn bushes.
That upper photo of a patch of nice wildflowers is as artificial as turf. It's still better for bees etc but the amount of herbicide needed to maintain it is why I now just mow. I do leave some acres unmowed but it's barely habitable. It needs occasional full mowing so that the thorn bushes don't become a problem to wildlife.
I wonder if it's location dependant? I threw some native wildflower seeds in half of my backyard just before winter set in and it grew into a mini meadow the next year without any further input from me. I didn't even water it
I think it's idiocy dependent.
No herbicide is required. No tilling is required.
The pulling of anything you don't want there, sure. But plants don't exactly move at 100mph. Unless this is a multi acre plot there's no reason why pulling by hand once a week won't win the war of attrition.
For more info on restoring land to meadow / nature see here: https://wearetheark.org/
How is tilling, planting seeds, and watering idiocy?
I said in my post that it is multi acre. The photos above aren't small yards where hand pulling is feasible.
Hand pulling is feasible on far more than small yards, particularly if the plan is a wildflower meadow rather than, say, vegetables.
Why try and create a patch of wildflowers if you're just going to spray herbicides all over it though? It defeats the purpose of the wildflowers! Unless all you care about it aesthetics, which is what this post is mocking in the first place.
You state that the native plants win as if that's a hardship. Native plants are of course going to win out, they're evolved for that location's climate. Choose native wildflowers. Help your local ecology, work with it, don't fight it. Spraying herbicide is the plant equivalent of napalm or agent orange. It costs you time, effort, money, and more than that, your environment, and in the end you don't even get what you're after.
Ignore what local businesses tell you, they're trying to get your money, use the vast wealth of information on the internet. Let nature do its thing.
Hand pulling is feasible on far more than small yards
I have 3.3 acres.
Hand pulling is feasible on far more than small yards
Why try and create a patch of wildflowers if you're just going to spray herbicides all over it though? It defeats the purpose of the wildflowers!
That was my point! I refused to use herbicide to give the illusion of natural. So called wildflowers are rarely natural. If they were, they'd already outcompete local flora and wouldn't need to be planted and maintained.
I also volunteer at the local nature preserve where everything is hand done. Not even power tools are used there. I'm well aware of what's needed for hand maintenance.
How many acres and were there already large weeds?
It was by an unmaintained strip of lilacs that acted as a property fence. Definitely had some invasive weeds but I suspect not watering them every day like the rest of my backyard killed them. I did need to dig up some Chinese elm saplings a few times, but I've had to do that on the rest of my property too
if those thorn bushes are native plants, then why not let them grow?
i just let the place grow wild without input from me, beyond what i & my dogs walk over. the grass/clover/purple deadnettle/buttercups/etc stay shorter in high-traffic areas, then the low-traffic areas tend to fill up with bigger wild plants like docks, thistles, nettles etc.
butterflies, bees, and other insects seem to love the thistles when they start flowering, and it's so nice to see pollinators fluttering & buzzing around that it's worth the occasional thorn/nettle sting when i'm not watching where i'm going! not to mention the blackberry harvest from the briars in the autumn.
if those thorn bushes are native plants
I suspect the reason those thorn bushes grow is they're probably not native. But they out complete everything.
it's well worth identifying what plant it is exactly & whether it's native or not, just to be sure. a lot of native plants can have vigorous growth & spread because that's exactly the habitat & climate it's adapted to.
but if it's not native & is spreading, it sounds like it'll be a hell of a job to remove. i don't envy you if that's the case, best of luck!
