Yard & Garden Page

 

March, 2005--Spring arrived early. Here are our first efforts at incorporating a wild little stream into our landscape.
The dark line, left center, is what we call Salamander Creek. We have tons of rocks, from where they dug up the yard for the new septic system, so we want to make this into a rock-lined bubbling brook, all the way to the river. The part to the left of the willow tree is always soggy, so we plan to put in a little dam and widen the creek into a shallow pond at that point.

Here is the before shot of the upper part of Salamander Creek, where it comes out from under the road. It's origin is somewhere up on the other side of the highway. It runs year-round, but just a steady trickle. It's always loaded with orange salamanders (newts?)

Here is what it looked like after about 3 hours work, digging out the creek bed and adding rocks that were turned up when they put in our new septic tank. This project will be a real challenge, since the creek goes underground in several places, where the natural path has been choked with weeds and grass.

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