Rattlesnake Lodge Hike

For a nice Sunday hike, we drove up to the Blue Ridge Parkway and hiked up to the old ruins of Rattlesnake Lodge, which was a summer residence for a wealthy doctor and his family back in the early 1900s. You can see their website for photos of what the place looked like back then (http://www.rattlesnakelodge.com/preface.htm ). Today it is mostly just old rock foundations and chimneys. We have hiked there a number of times, but today we wanted to hike a side trail we hadn't hiked before, one that circles above the old lodge up to a spring-fed reservoir the family used to supply water to the house. We started at the Parkway at an elevation of 3300 ft, hiked up to the lodge at 3700 ft, then on up to the reservoir and beyond where we reached an upper elevation of about 4000 ft, so it was a good 700 ft vertical climb. We took a few pictures along the way. The first is of a bright orange salamander we found crossing the trail. The photo doesn't really do it justice as it was a very bright orange, about like a gold fish. Not really a good color for blending into the greenery.

At the lower elevations, the Mountain Laurels were in full bloom, like in this picture

At higher elevations, the Mountain Laurel were just starting to bloom, but there were still some Flame Azaleas that hadn't lost their blooms, so you could see the two blooming together in some places.
This is wider shot of a different area where they were in bloom together, with the white Mountain Laurels forming a background for the Flame Azalea. Both grow really tall in this area, as some of these were at least 20ft in height.

The Mulch Makes It

The mulch was finally blown in Monday and Tuesday so we can show photos of this phase of our landscaping completed.

We added two more white pines to the three that went in two years ago to shield the view of the neighbor's house. The new ones are not as tall, but are just about as big around as the old ones.


The next photo was taken from just below the white pines, looking back toward the raised bed and the house. The small bright green shrubs visible in both photos are American Beautyberry. This time, we hope they really are beautyberry. The rocks that line the mulched bed were not really part of the plan - they were apparently an on-the-spot decision by the landscaper to help delineate the areas for the mulch to go. All the rocks were there, they just had to be moved a little.


This next photo shows the view looking down toward the street from about the same point below the pines. There are three new redbuds, a dogwood, and our favorite American Beech. The green bags will help us keep the trees watered, but we'll we using our root waterers for the shrubs. We plan to have more shrubs put in, but we opted to put off planting them for now. Watering in new plants is a lot of work and our rainbarrels have limited capacity. This way, we will spread the burden out.


The next photos shows how the original landscaping directly in front of the house and along the sidewalk has grown since the plants went in two and half years ago. The Virginia sweetspire are just flowering. The Carolina silverbells (the tree in the foreground) has really responded to this spring's rains and unusual temperature fluctuations.


We had to have a few shrubs moved to make a path so that we can get to the stone steps from the front door and walk. We also moved one holly that was making access to the gas tank difficult (it's buried in the slope to the right of the front door in the photo above).

This is the overview from the street. The rhododendron blooms have faded, but the mountain laurel are just starting up.



And we wanted to show what the scarecrow looks like up close

From the front side, which is how we see him from the house -


He can turn around on the pole, so you can see his expression is just as charming from the other side -

Raised Garden gets a Guardian

We thought the landscaping would be done yesterday, but the blow-in-mulch truck needed some repairs, so that will be next week. Then Blogger was down for a couple of days, but we still have an interim update.

We made an inspection tour with our landscaper on Thursday afternoon, starting right near the house at the new raised bed. At the new fork in the path of wood steps next to the deck, Norris pointed to a corner and suggested they needed to do something to keep the dirt from just washing down. When we came back a few minutes later we came back, one of the guys was finishing up a small dry stack wall made of rocks he dug up while creating the bed.


We bought some plants at the nursery to plant in our new vegetable garden. But at least temporarily more interesting is the Scarecrow we bought from a recycler at the farmer's market this morning. It's made from an old shovel and various metal parts from the salvage yard.


The entire front edge of the bed is easily reached, no bending required! We put some of the taller plants in the back. We'll see if we get enough sunlight for vegetable production from this location, which is very near the overachieving rhubarb. If not, we will just have to get some friends for the scarecrow. We doubt he's really going to scare any birds.

work on the landscape finishing up

Today's photo update: We have a single broad step leading over the dry stream bed.



A view up through the rhododendron -


This photo, taken from even further back, shows how our new raised bed looks from the mailbox -

Tomorrow or this weekend, we'll post photos of the finishing details.

This next photo shows a native flower now in bloom that our neighbor is coveting. She calls it a "Fairy Wand" - its real name must be Chamaelirium luteum. We're referring to the small white blooms in the foreground, found at the edge of the road cut.



Now we have a few photos from the rest of the neighborhood - first these beautiful white blooming shrubs -

We don't have any we can see on our property (this is down the street) -


... but that's because they may be beautiful, but they are treacherous invasives. These are the Multiflora Rose that we are constantly waging battles against, with their nasty thorns on spreading branches. They are easily noticed now, but when the blooms are gone, they are just waiting to reach out and tear your skin and clothing.


A far more welcomed sight is this Flame Azalea, spotted by a neighbor who knows Cheryl walks through the area every day. She called to make sure we didn't miss it.

Landscaping continues on four fronts

After a day off on another job elsewhere, we have a four-man crew working in our yard today.

One of them looks over the job he has just completed. He got to transplant a clethra that was here first, but was being overtaken by the rhubarb Dorry gave Norris that has far exceeded expected rhubarb dimensions. The giant rhubarb, already more than waist high, is visible to the left of the hole in the mulch that is now being refilled. With no competition for water and sun, how big will it get this year? Cheryl's knitting friends said they will buy any she brings to their gatherings.

This next young man just managed to wheel this load of stepping stones down the slope without it running away for a crash landing. The stones will fill in the gaps in the path you can see between the risers in the stone staircase.


Temporarily it looks like we're building a fortification, but this will be the raised garden bed. The tall posts planted to hold up the retaining wall will be sawed off and fill dirt will create the planting area to the left in this photo.


In the far background of the last photo is the fourth crew member wearing dark blue. He is removing a junk tree and starting to dig holes for the trees and shrubs for the far side of the wildflower meadow.

Stone Steps

Today is an interim update so Norris can get a look at the progress in the yard. Cheryl took this first picture through the window early in the day. It was a very cold morning but warmed up to be a nice day to be outside.


Three guys and a fork lift worked all day on this project. The young man crouching on the right, told me today that our original landscaping project was his first week on the job. He's been here for most of the work since. We've had this company do our spring cleanup and added to the landscaping at least annually.

Now for some views of the progress. This is from the driveway -



This shot is similar, but from the mailbox, just a bit farther away -



The approach to the dry stream bed crossing is unfortunately in afternoon shade, but you can almost see the two large stones to the right of the irises after a flatter approach with just tamped soil.


The day lilies and irises have not been moved yet. They told me they have a couple more wood steps to put in on the other side of the stream bed.

A New Way Down

Our landscapers arrived yesterday to start unloading and prepping materials for the newest changes to our slope. These progress photos are for Norris, who is not here to see what's going on.

First, we have a new path to the road, from the deck side of the house down to the dry stream bed -

The photo has an odd perspective, as Cheryl was on the deck looking down. What appears to be a missing step is actually a landing.

The next photo shows what the new steps look like from maybe 2/3rds of the way down looking up. The dirt on the right will be explained in a later photo. The tomato cages at the top of the steps visible in this photo are protecting Cheryl's crop of cilantro from the construction.


And here's where they stopped for the afternoon - very close to the stream bed crossing. The day lilies in the foreground, , a gift from a neighbor, will be moved.


Cheryl can report that the trip up and down between the street and the house is already much improved over what the driveway presents. The real purpose of the steps is to make the trek safer on those occasions where the driveway has ice. We can usually just wait for daylight to melt whatever is frozen, but emergency calls don't wait till the sun shines.

They started weed whacking the perimeter of the wildflower meadow which will get more rhododendron, small native ornamental trees, and pines. We have not given up the idea of a vegetable garden - they are installing a new terraced planting bed for us on the part of the slope that was once logging road and full of multiflora rose. This is what you could see to the right of the steps.

Not really visible at the resolution of these photos are the remaining naturally occurring flame azalea Cheryl rescued the cutting from last week. They are just down the slope from the three white pines in the center rear

This next photo shows the staging of the locust posts under the deck. They will be used to build up the low side of the terraced bed. There's another pile of these at the end of the driveway where they were off-loaded from the truck.



Black cloth in the background will be used to line the locust-post support system for the bed, to prevent the fill dirt from leaking out between the logs.