The dream home for Thor and me continues to grow as we install more plants.
NOTE: People have been asking to follow our progress as Thor and I pursue our quest for our dream home with sunsets over the Salish Sea. So starting with my post of 5/21/22, we set out.
If you’re following this series, you may recall Thor and I planting a row of arbor vitae as the start of a privacy hedge along our south boundary (with a cedar fence to be added after our swim spa gets moved in from storage).
Thor even wrote this inspiring poem about our efforts:
Sara and Thor perform feats galore,
But none so bold and mighty
As that day in the lee of the Salish Sea
They planted the Arbor vitae.
Poor Thor felt rough, but Sara was tough,
and she said, “Pick up that pail!
“You’ve whined enough, so I’ll be gruff,
“Today we will not fail!”
So we soldiered on, till we planted that lawn,
And Thor collapsed in a heap.
Sara said, “You look half-dead,
“But I guess you’ve earned your keep!”
(with Thor’s apologies to Robert Service and real poets everywhere)
Since I’ve been suffering continued nerve pain from cervical stenosis — hurrah, I will finally get a second surgery soon to finally fix the issue the first surgeon didn’t fully address! — I relied on Thor to provide most of the muscle while I pointed out what to do. His two new bionic shoulders are performing admirably.
Since we are required to maintain a Native Plant Protection Zone between our seaside bluff and our house in-progress (due to previous lot owner illegally clear-cutting), we wanted to plant an evergreen row along the boundary as a visual screen. The “buffer zone” hasn’t looked very appealing in the winter, as the mostly deciduous bushes look dead brown then. But we have plans for our own mitigation of that issue (see below).
First stop was buying a lot of rhododendrons and a few other bushes, plus fencing materials. It all barely fit into a rental van:
Below, all the plants laid out along the Zone boundary. You might notice that the Zone sign was now behind the new boundary. We were unexpectedly required (what will the County come up with next?) to expand the Zone by another 8′ due to more bureaucratic second guessing and an error on their part (County says they are short-handed, but they do manage to make time for yet another requirement to make us dance). We had to haul in a lot of mulch to cover that 8′ stretch, plus another swathe to cover the area where the required flood/erosion-control drainage pipe was installed by our builder. We had to pay too much to an approved service to install more native plants in those two strips.
Thor was happy about the chance to buy a new tool: a Thor-size “hammer” to pound in metal fence posts for the required fence along the boundary. He was careful to get up high enough so he could pound without raising the mallet too high. Titanium shoulder joints stayed happy, too.
A big wind came up before we could get the new plants into the ground, so we improvised this ladder system to tie the plants in place.
We paced ourselves by planting only a few of the rhodies each day, until the row of bushes was done. We also had bought more native plants to fulfill the required quota, and Thor got to purchase yet another exciting tool for digging holes: an electric auger. It saves a lot of wear and tear on the body, and really does an amazing job.
The neighbors on both sides are grandfathered in with lawns that go to the edge of the bluff, and keep shaking their heads over all that we need to do to address erosion. Don’t get me wrong — in our previous home, I voluntarily created a native-plant preserve in our creek ravine, and I fully support the efforts toward conservation. I love many of the native plants, and the bird life they attract. There just seems to be a few too many hoops we’ve had to jump in our new place, with little advance notice from our beloved County. Anyway, Bear dog loves the neighbor’s lawn to roll around on, and they love him to come visit for petting:
Fencing and plants installed:
I’m excited to see the blooms start to arrive, as I love rhodies. This is the first one I bought, when I saw its name: Seaview Sunset, the goal of our project to create this new home.
I love deep reds and purples, so I’m eager to see these two bloom. Lord Roberts:
And Purple Passion:
The auger came into play again, as well as cement for the wooden gate posts. We do enjoy contributing as much “sweat equity” as we are able, as we feel we are truly contributing to creating our new home.
We relocated the sign. We see plenty of heron here, and are hoping for frogs.
I was happy to see volunteer bleeding heart emerging through the mulch, as they were one of my Grandma Sara’s favorite flowers.
Evergreen huckleberry:
Coastal pine:
There are a lot of existing snowberry bushes (the ones that look dead brown in the winter), so we’re planning to plant more evergreen native bushes like Oregon Grape among them, as well as sword ferns, below. They help stabilize the soil from runoff, as the layers of fronds lie on the ground when the new fiddle-heads open up. You might also spot another of my favorites, wild currant, among the ferns below.
I definitely have to pace myself these days, so we enjoy a lot of picnic lunches on the bluff edge. Thor doesn’t complain, either, as we watch eagles, returning swallows, hummingbirds, and more, as well as migrating whales and sunning seals on the boulders at low tide.
The view from the upstairs deck. (I spray-painted the white tops of the metal fence posts dark green so they would blend in more harmoniously.) On glorious sunny spring days like this one, all the effort is worth it.
See you next week, on the other side of my surgery. (Hint: granite counter tops!)
*****
You will find The Rambling Writer’s blog posts here every Saturday. Sara’s latest novel from Book View Café is Pause, a First Place winner of the Chanticleer Somerset Award and an International Pulpwood Queens Book Club selection. “A must-read novel about friendship, love, and killer hot flashes.” (Mindy Klasky). Sign up for her quarterly email newsletter at www.sarastamey.com
