Tag Archives: Written by Susanne Kessaris

We have begun phase one of a beautification project in our backyard since the city’s crews have finished digging and have removed their dirt moving equipment.  They pushed and moved dirt around for about two weeks beginning by 8 each morning and quitting by 4 each afternoon. Fortunately, the weather cooperated during that time and even the threat of hurricane winds and rain did not blow or wash their work away.

First they dug and removed cracked concrete drain pipes. Next they dug out a deeper trench. They left a four-foot deep ravine along the back of our property which leads to a creek on our neighbor’s adjoining property.  They smoothed out the dirt piles then laid out bundles of straw and burlap mesh which then was covered with grass seed.

The landscape area looked bare when they finished. We decided to plant a row of fast-growing shrubs that would eventually hide the ditch and landscaping fabric along the slope facing our property. The problem was that the ground back there stays fairly wet during rainy seasons. We had to decide what could tolerate damp ground conditions. We decided on tea olive shrubs known as Osmanthus. They are evergreen, have a holly type leaf and have sweet-smelling white flowers that bloom both in the spring and the fall.

I shopped around until I found a reasonable price since we had to cover a 140 foot expanse. We got 25 shrubs to be spaced out 6 feet apart. The nursery delivered them. We had our yard guys dig the holes while my husband planted the shrubs.  Four hours later, I had three tired, sweaty fellows but a beautiful hedge of shrubs. They planted them in a curved rather than straight line for better aesthetic appeal.  The plan is to later fill in with some camellias and Little Gem Magnolia trees in front of the hedge.

Sometimes we are visited by the neighbor’s cats.  We have found the yellow tabby curled up on a sunny spring day taking a “cat nap” in a flower-pot beneath our deck.  There is a black, brown and white calico that wanders through the yard occasionally and teases our Cavalier while she sits at the picture window in our kitchen longing to tear after him.  Our Cav  loves to go out on our deck where she can get the best vantage point to scan our property and  a corner of our neighbor’s yard. Their yard is heavily covered with foliage from which the cats can peer out and easily find a camouflaged spot to hide from our furocious sounding dog.  Our Delilah has caught these intruders by surprise when we have taken her on walks. She has gotten close to them but never quite close enough for her liking. She lives frustrated because she can do no more than bark at them to temporarily frighten them away.

This week we have had a different type of “cat” in our backyard.  I am talking about a power-operated form of equipment that is used to move dirt around.

We have lived with a ditch in our backyard where water drains from surrounding properties into a drain field and eventually into a creek beside us.  The drainage ditch has gotten bigger through the years and the water run-off has begun to create some gulleys on our property. A complaint was filed before we bought our property five years ago and we hoped one day the problem would be addressed but had almost given up thinking they would come to fix the problem.  We tried to work around the problem and made a garden plot beside it in the spring. A team of workers from the city came to inspect our property about a week ago.  They  have to excavate through our garden to work on the project.  I am really not upset. I believe it will be worth it in the long run. In the mean time, I am having to look out in my yard at some monster “cats.”

Here is a glimpse of flowers in my garden after the plentiful rains that we have been having the last few weeks. There is no comparison between how well plants thrive on rainfall versus man sourced watering.