putting in a redwood walkway

Part of the morning on May 15 was spent digging in the good dark earth, installing some nice redwood rounds to build a walkway over at Elizabeth’s place. In the picture, the ones in the foreground are fully installed, while the ones farther away are just sitting on the ground, still waiting to be sunk in.

All the vegetation is cleared from the area around the path, which will receive extra water this summer. As plants sprout up, the ones that get too big, too close to the path will be clipped out (or transplanted, if they are interesting). Eventually, all the vegetation near the path will be long-term, low-growing, and drought tolerant. That evolution will take a bit more than a year.

One of the basic principles of ecosystem gardening is Never Tread On The Ground! So walkways and stepping stones are quite important.

In this case, these big fat redwood rounds were available for next to nothing, and will last for surprisingly many years before they’ll need to be replaced. While they slowly decay they will shelter many kinds of wonderful critters underneath, and add their woody nutrients to the soil.

We’ll use additional redwood slabs for “access pads” scattered around the rest of the garden. The idea is to be able to reach almost every part of the landscape without ever standing on the soil. Big, round rocks are also good for access pads.

Meanwhile, the bright morning sun set ablaze this happy sunflower: