Kathy

This course has given me some helpful ideas and also confirmed some of the steps I've already taken. We live on 7.5 acres in southwest Michigan most of which is wooded. The house is surrounded by a about an acre of lawn and formal gardens. We are working in a two-pronged effort to remove invasives and migrate lawn areas to native plants. There is a teardrop shaped area of lawn in the middle of a driveway turn-around with a couple of trees and bushes in it that we selected as our first native plant area. Beginning 2 years ago, we stopped mowing it and are planting natives a little at a time. There is an organization in our area that has a native plant sale every spring so we've purchased some each year and worked hard with Liquid Fence applications to keep the deer and rabbits from eating them! Most have survived and the ones planted last year are now blooming. We're also experimenting with various ways to kill off the grass. Meanwhile I've been on a campaign to pull garlic mustard and oriental bittersweet when I go for my daily walk through the woods. My husband cuts down the larger bittersweet vines that had already wrapped their way around tree trunks. We also have multiflora rose to not in as great a quantity. We're in our 70's and only have so much energy to devote to this each day! I'm starting to wonder where we could hire a part-time gardener/forester.