A short bit about my greenbelt

[AustinGroundCrew]

Hey y'all. Zipper asked me to make a post about my greenbelt. At first glance, I don't see a tool for posting any photos, so text will have to do.

Again, I live in far northeast Austin (practically Pflugerville) in the narrow strip of Blackland Prairie that funnels down from North Texas. The back part of my lot lies along a creek that feeds into Walnut Creek. The vegetation is fairly dense, with trees being mostly Cedar Elms and Cedars (Junipers). I also have a few Hawthorns, Mulberries, and some other trees I have not yet identified. As far as other desirable native vegetation, I've identified Squawbush/Skunkbush/Aromatic Sumac, Virginia Creeper, Clover, Dichondra, Greenbriar, and a tiny "meadow" of native grasses. There's tons of other specimens I haven't yet identified.

Zipper asked how I'm managing my little forest. Well for the most part, I'm letting Mother Nature do her own thing. However, due primarily to an abundance of poison oak and numerous chiggers in the summer, I've found that the area will require a little more manipulation if it is to be enjoyed by humans :-) So the main things I'm doing right now are:
1: Manually removing the poison oak
2: Keeping the grasses cut back to discourage chiggers and at least paritally replacing the grasses with lower-growing wildflowers
3: Encouraging propogation of in-place, low-growing natives (clover, dichondra, etc.)

I've also laid out a path using shredded cedar and have begun making a gathering space for a fire pit. This will require some leveling of slightly sloped ground (probably will ultimately put in some flat stone or brickwork). The path winds down through a heavily shaded area, winds between my "meadow" and the creek, goes through my firepit area, then winds back up the hill through the trees and loops back to the edge of the woods. My ultimate plan is to preserve the wooded sections as much as possible and restrict human use to the path and meadow.

So if I figure out how to post pictures soon, I'll add some visuals to go along with the above description.

Austin Ground Crew

[Doug]

Please send them to jenny@dirtdoctor.com and we will post them in the Ground Crew Pictures & Video area.

[admin]

AustinGroundCrew wrote: Hey y'all. Zipper asked me to make a post about my greenbelt. At first glance, I don't see a tool for posting any photos, so text will have to do.


I'm sorry, but pictures can not be posted directly to the forums, i.e.:

From the FAQ at http://www.dirtdoctor.com/forum/faq.php#11

Can I post Images?
Images can indeed be shown in your posts. However, there is no facility at present for uploading images directly to this board. Therefore you must link to an image stored on a publicly accessible web server, e.g. http://www.some-unknown-place.net/my-picture.gif. You cannot link to pictures stored on your own PC (unless it is a publicly accessible server) nor to images stored behind authentication mechanisms such as Hotmail or Yahoo mailboxes, password-protected sites, etc.

I hope that helps!