FAREWELL TO THE TREE AZALIAS :(

They are also thirsty plants but that's not why they had to go  One of the original 4 plants from our first landscaping project at this house bit the dust last year and we lost a second one this year.   Plus all the shrubs underneath just looked terrible.   The remaining jasmine shouldn't need any water at all.  So,  if my sedum lawn is a success, I can turn all of the water off on this side of the yard

Have I mentioned how much I love my new battery powered chain saw?  

Thanks MaryLou.  Best birthday present ever!

 WE HAVE ROOTS!

I picked up my 10 extra flats of sedum sod from Lowes on Tuesday evening (3 days after my first cuttings were distributed) gave them all a haircut and got pretty good coverage of the remaining area

 



I am lightly watering the new cuttings as well as the shaved flats every evening.












Here are the shaved flats sitting on my next target   

And these things are awesome!   I took a look at the cuttings this morning and, not only do they actually still seem to be alive,  almost all of them are showing some new roots forming.  I took a picture of one of them with obvious roots.   Not sure if this guy was from 7 days ago or 4 days ago but you still have to be impressed with how quickly it is looking to propagate itself.

 I will mark this  one just to keep tabs on an individual cutting but so far so good!

planting begins

5 flats doesn't go very far.  

I am always surprised when my genius is misunderstood but it is clear my gardener does not trust my vision.  He did a nice job with the flagstone path I but didn't believe me when I told him I didn't want him to put in the sedum flats I had on hand.     I still have the small containers of sedum to make cuttings from so I guess it will be a contest to see which area does best.

 It was fun to give these guys a haircut

 before and after for each type

 scattered cuttings filled in quite a lot of space

 It will be interesting to see if they survive and fill in the space.  I have 10 flats coming in this week so I should be able to get the entire space covered soon.   Then time will tell.   

 

I have finally pulled the trigger and had my gardener take out the grass in one section of our yard.

There is still another beautiful patch of lush green lawn (I mean evil water hogging threat to western civilization) remaining, but it will need to wait a while to meet it's doom. 

I have been thinking about and doing some research on this project for a while now.  When I found a company that sells bulk sedum cuttings for green roofs I thought I had found the solution.  Unfortunately they would not sell to me or my gardener so I was wondering how I could proceed.   My inspiration began with using this sedum sod purchased from Lowes for some landscaping work at my mother in laws home. 

My original thinking was to purchase as many as I could and cut each flat into 20-30 plugs.   But I could only find 4 flats and a few containers of this low growing , mixed sedum   I have ordered 10 more flats but am too cheap to just buy enough to fill in the entire area.  As I was loading these into my trunk and seeing lots of little pieces break off, it occurred to me that these were essentially the cuttings I had wanted to purchase in bulk.     Why not just take a scissors to these flats and spread the cuttings but keep the flats growing for a supply to fill in the gaps and eventually expand to the next yard?   I, for one, think this plan is inspired.     Todays plan is to take some flagstone from the old patio (currently on track for destruction when we tear down then rebuild our garage - perhaps another blog topic) and make a path through the yard so we can get to the mailbox without walking through damp grass (or dry sedum) and people who walk up the driveway have a way to get to the door.