Goodbye 2016

I surely didn't expect to be waking in my own home in North Carolina a year ago.

The last two mornings i've awakened before dawn and have been able to stand underneath the starry night sky, listening. Yesterday some creature was walking in the woods: i assume a deer. This morning there was a call, somewhere between canid and owl. Definitely not the owl or owls i am used to hearing call from the eastern woods. A bright satellite passed overhead this morning.

Yesterday i transplanted some wildflowers and native clumping grass. The wildflowers include one or two native geranium species. Earlier in the week i identified G maculatum from one area, what i transplanted last evening seemed more like G carolinianum. This morning i wonder if i have two different plants or if my memory is clouded. Another plant's identification stands between Rosaceae: Waldsteinia fragarioides subsp. doniana and Ranunculaceae: Ranunculus sardous. It's hard without flowers. Don't get me started about the grass.

These are all planted in the sward area, my pilot for the "tapestry lawn." I hadn't thought to have any grass, but the clumps of this native grass, Dichanthelium sp (witchgrass or rosette grass), seem quite agreeable. It's coarse and seems quite tough, and very low growing. Mixed in are the very persistent violets, and i'll be adding moss phlox and "green and gold" - both native flowering ground covers. The challenge will be the annual grasses that acted as lawn all last summer - i suspect that much was actually the invasive stilt grass.

I will likely buy some fescue seed and scatter in the early spring. It's not the right tine to plant it, but it might compete with the stilt grass.