I had to dump the deck. There was no way around that … the unknown chemicals in the wood meant that it could not be reused for anything else. It was painful to drive past the "reclaimed wood" pile to dump the wood in the general landfill pile, but it had to be done. Spending an afternoon yielded several thoughts, however:

• There was a truck there from a window company dumping an entire truckload of used windows. Can those not be reused for something? There just seems like there would be better ways of disposing of them – putting them in houses, or using them for cold frames, or melting down the materials for other things. (They seemed to have aluminum frames.) Every time they tossed a window in the pit and I heard it crash, it made me cringe. It made me also remember the name of the company (although I’m not going to post it) … if I ever need my windows replaced (a high possibility in this house), I will be asking the window company what they do with their old windows and how seriously they take their environmental impact as a company.
• The amount of plastic I could see on the landfill floor was just astounding. If there was ever a call to reuse/reduce, this scene was it.
• Many non-commercial dumpers amazed me with their laziness. They brough mixed loads of items, and instead of sorting them out—yard wastes was one stop, recycling was another, reclaimed wood was another, etc.—they just paid more (for greater trash volume) and dumped it all in the landfill pile. I was just dumbfounded to watch people dumping cardboard, tree clippings, grass, and plastic bottles into the landfill pile.
• Why do we make decks out of chemically treated wood? The deck was thoroughly rotten and it wasn’t that old—it could have been any kind of non-treated wood and ended up in the same condition. The difference is that the chemically treated wood has to go into the landfill; the non-treated stuff can be reused in the garden or burned for firewood or reclaimed for wood chips.
• Recycling carts are not recyclable! It was crazy to see so many of them IN the landfill—apparently if they get smashed or otherwise damaged, in the landfill they go. We replaced other containers for recycling with these carts to make collection easier/faster, and in the process we’re creating more trash for the landfill with the carts?
• Even in a dump, some hope remains. I flipped over a piece of the deck while I was dumping it, and found a sweet little banana slug. I didn’t want him to end up in the landfill too, so I carefully plucked him off the deck, put him in my MyCoffee cup, and brought him home to my yard. Even surrounded by trash, I found a way to reuse a cup made of recycled paper, save a beneficial creature, bring him home, and then recycle the cup. (The picture is the slug getting released in my yard.)

If you’re in the area, and you have never been to the Saturday Market in downtown Eugene, you must go. It is so fantastically Eugene.

PS – This pot is made of 100% biodegradable bamboo. You use it for planting, and in a few years you can stick the plant in the pot directly into the ground and it will break down in the soil. It will degrade in 3 years for indoor use, 2 years for outdoor use, and 6 months if you just toss it in the trash once you are done. Learn more at Rosso International.

The downside to this is that it takes FOREVER if you are impatient! (My husband is quite horrified at the idea that his front yard will probably have patches and holes in it for a few years until this all takes.) Instead of digging up the whole front yard and putting this in, I am just slowly replacing my grass with these groundcover plants every time I find a hole or have to dig out some sort of undesirable weed.

For my groundcover, I chose Elfin Miniature Thyme (Thymus serpyllum) from the Stepables collection. (They seem to be available locally here during the spring from several nurseries as well as Fred Meyer.) It is a compact, tightly matted plant with slower growth that produces pretty flowers in the summer. It tolerates heavy foot traffic and stays green all year. Once established, it doesn’t require a lot of water and it tolerates long periods of sun.

Before we moved in here, the house had been sitting vacant for a long time, and there are no sprinklers so the grass was pretty much dead. This, for me, set the bar in terms of what the yard would do if left completely unattended – the grass would die by fall and the trees (more suited to this habitat) would continue on just fine. So the groundcover is my answer of how to make that part of the yard "survive" the summer with little care.

Along with replacing the lawn with this groundcover, I am encouraging moss growth as a native groundcover. It is really quite pretty and soft, and grows with such little effort in this soil. To feed the moss and encourage growth, I fed it a mixture of buttermilk and compost tea (a recipe from the Lovejoy book). I also wanted to enrich the soil as a whole (feed the soil, not the plants!), so I spread chicken compost around the front yard and let the rain dissolve it into the ground. (Besides making the process easier, I am really glad it was raining during both these applications because it meant that my neighbors were not out in their yards while I was doing this. I really didn’t want to explain to them, being the new kid on the block, why I was putting buttermilk and chicken crap all over my front lawn!) I purchased the chicken compost from Rexius, a local green recycler.

Overall it seems to be going well although there are a few snags in this process – such as what to do about the lawn during this growing phase. I can’t mow it because I don’t want to damage the groundcover that I am trying to establish, but I imagine the lawn will eventually grow taller. I have been hacking out any tall grasses (some sort of fescue) by hand, as well as any undesirable weeds (usually the ones with spikey leaves). I then replace these holes with more compost mixture and another groundcover plant. Eventualy, I may have to just mow down part of the lawn with the edge trimmer to keep it manageable without whacking the groundcover or anything else out there. (One of the fun benefits of not mowing your lawn is that you get to see what else pops up – I’ve had everything from delicate wildflowers to iris and hyacinth blubs.)

I am up to 6 or 7 of these "groundcover plugs", with lots of moss mixed in the grass. I’ll keep updating with pictures as this progresses.

In theory, at least. We will see how this actually works out!

I think most people would select one or two varieties that best complimented their needs, but I went with seven total because I’m going for this wild/forest-looking concept. They were all selected based on their tolerance of sun/heat, drought resistance, and speed of growth. (I’m impatient, what can I say?) These are the finalists:

• Grass replacement: Elfin Miniature Thyme (Thymus serpyllum) As the grass dies off or gets weeded out, I will slowly replace it with this low-growing groundcover. It stands up to heavy traffic, is drought tolerant once it is established, and it produces these wonderful little flowers. It stays green year-round and never needs mowing like a lawn. I can’t wait until my "icky ol grass" turns into a luxurious "living carpet"!
• Corner strawberry bed: Baby Tears (Sedum album ‘Chloroticum’) This will fill in nicely between the strawberries, hiding under their leaves during the hottest months, and bringing blooms every spring. I’m also hoping these will somewhat distract the deer from eating the strawberries, as deer typically don’t like sedum plants but I have already caught them rummaging through my varieties of strawberries!
• Fast growers to live around the landscaping: White Star Creeper (a white-flowered Pratia angulata), Alpine Geranium Charm (a pink Erodium reichardii), County Park (purple-flowered Pratia pedunculata), and Double Alpine Geranium Flore Pleno (a light purple-flowered Erodium reichardii). These may vary in their tolerance of the amount of foot traffic, but what they all do have in common is their tolerance of varying water conditions and bright sun at certain times of the day. They are all moderate to fast growers during the peak season as well.
• The landscape accent plant: Victor Reite, Dwarf Thrift (Armeria) This plant tolerates light foot traffic and looks like a mini grass bush with taller flowers.

The soil was simply prepared by hand-mixing the soil, the top layer of bark mulch, and some composted elements. I pushed down on each plant as I dropped it into the hole to keep them level with the ground. The plants were also watered well after being planted.

I know these will take a few years to really spread out and become established, but I am trying to think of my garden in terms of the long run (say, the next decade or two) instead of what looks good right now. I am also getting continually bombarded with surprises in this yard, because plants keep springing up everywhere that the previous owners must have planted.