gardening, environment, land use, armadillo star fort, yard art garden, nature, native plants

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An occasional report of what’s growing at Maypop Hill Nursery and the Miley homestead in
An occasional report of what’s growing at Maypop Hill Nursery and the Miley homestead in
Norwood, LA; to subscribe to the free newsletter, contact us by email:
Norwood, LA; to subscribe to the free newsletter, contact us by email: maypophill@gmail.com
maypophill@gmail.com.
.
Website:
Website: maypophill.com
maypophill.com
The Maypop Hill
The Maypop Hill
Newsletter
Newsletter
April 2022
April 2022
2022
2022
Garden
Garden
Goals
Goals
Seating, low enough to pull weeds
Edibles, both annual and perennial vegetables:
strawberries, spaghetti squash, Scarlet Runner beans,
elephant garlic, Jerusalem Artichoke, purple tree collards
Low maintenance; weed fabric, compost containers,
fencing to deter digging dogs:
This year
Maypop Hill
is
redesigning
and redoing
projects.
Since there
are multiple
planting
areas, we
have given
new names
or
repurposes to
better keep
track of what
is planted
where.
The one
above, inside
a cordon-
trellis of
muscadine
grape vines,
is now
officially
called the
Yard Art
Garden.
Sunlight has returned→
where three lovely
winged sumacs once grew.
Rhus copallinum, a drought-tolerant
small tree, had become troublesome.
After lightning and strong winds
pushed up their roots,
we remove them entirely.
The yellow native azalea
(Rhododendron austrinum)
will flower better, now that the
shady canopy is gone.

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The Driveway also got a new name. Actually several new
names. each suggesting its land use goal:
Birdhouse Prairie, planted with
False Indigo (Baptisia species)
Blazing Star (Liatris pycnostachya, etc.)
Ashy Sunflower (Helianthus mollis)
and other sun-loving forbs and native
grasses.
Armadillo Star Fort,
will, in theory, maybe, hopefully deter
the little tank-like critters from digging
up fire ant mounds. So far, each
diamond bay has a single special
wildflower, such as the
Louisiana Catchfly, (Silene subciliata)
we planted last week.
A famous poem by William Carlos Williams inspired
this bed, which also sports switch grass and gamagrass.
so much depends
upon
a red wheel
barrow
glazed with rain
water
beside the white
chickens

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The Back Deck, below (no nifty new name has occurred to us).
The citrus trees and bell peppers spent the winter inside The Back
Porch, out of the freezing temperatures.
An old BBQ grill now serves as a potting tray table.
The lightweight tulle fabric protects the seedlings
from peckish birds more than from strong sunlight.
We also cover tender veggies with the cloth in
winter and will probably use it in the yard art garden
to discourage rabbits, squirrels, chipmunks, skunks.
Dogwood Walk
Dogwood Walk
leads to – guess?
Silky Dogwood
(Cornus amomum)
Roughleaf Dogwood
(Cornus drummondii)
and Strict Dogwood,
aka Swamp Dogwood
(Cornus foemina)
No Flowering Dogwood
(Cornus florida), sadly.
Our native species is dying out
from a fungus introduced on the
Korean Dogwood (C. kousa)

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Maypop Hill Nursery & Publications
4979 Spec Garig Rd., Norwood, LA
Betty & LJ Miley, specializing in native plants of the South
email: maypophill@gmail.com web: maypophill.com
Geaux native!
Holly Gully
Holly Gully gets no name change,
since Yaupon Hollies grow in
abundance on the slopes. Next to the
red mulberry and Mountain Laurel we
planted two North Spice Bushes (Linda
benzoin).
The hilly area has the best soil on the
property, which was likely a cotton farm
back when landowners tilled and tilled
and sprayed arsenic and grievously
eroded the topsoil.
Now, about that Pocket Prairie . . .
Years ago, we set aside a gated garden to protect against digging dogs. It was a sunny,
open location with poor soil, perfect for a prairie with native grasses and wildflowers.
Somehow, not sure why, a winged elm and a Groundsel Bush and a Titi [tie-tie] sprang up
when we weren’t looking and stole sunlight
from the prairie. Meantime, somehow,
concrete native reptiles had snuck in and
ended up
trapped in “the prairie” -- which is now
Alligator
Alligator
Alley.
Alley.