The Backyard Forest Click on any image to see a larger view.

10 Year Plan This is the latest plan for the yard, made in 1997. This is how everything should look in 2007. Most landscaping has now been done, except for the west side yard. As of January 2000, I updated the graphics to show the approximate size of the trees and added area names . The yellow square, on the west side, represents the camera location for the backyard panoramas below.

July 2000 PixAround scrolling backyard photo (requires latest version of Netscape or IE).

July 1999

July 1998

July 1997

July 1996

Some History (as of October, 1999) This is the brief history of our backyard. From the original idea to turn a steep hillside into a wildflower meadow to the idea of restoring the yard to a forest. The text below was written a couple of years ago and although I am tempted to change it, I figure I will leave it as ... was. Many things have been learned since the early days of our yard construction and some of the notes below seem pretty crazy to me now. I have added some current pictures to go along side the older ones so you can see how much things have changed in the last 3 years. ....have fun!

June, 1995 Our original idea was to turn a hillside into a wildflower meadow. We did not know about ecological restoration, or habitat restoration for that matter, we just knew that mowing grass on the hillside was an incredible waste of time. We wanted to eliminate any area of lawn that we did not use, leaving grass only on level ground. We used dirt and sod taken out of the front and side yards to extend the level area by about 10 feet.

1995	1999

I was already concerned about using exotic plants, so we ordered a so called native mix from Wildseed Farms in Texas. Here is a table of the plants ordered in June 1995 and the results.

PLANT NAME	1995	1996	1997	1998	1999
Tickseed (Coreopsis lanceolata)	N	F	F	F	F
Plains Coreopsis (Coreopsis tinctoria)	Y	Y	F	N	N
Purple Coneflower (Echinacea purpurea)	N	S	Y	Y	Y
Blanket Flower (Gaillardia aristata)	S	S	S	S	S
Indian Blanket (Gaillardia pulchella)	S	S	S	S	S
Perennial Lupine (Lupinus perennis)	N	F	F	*	*
Tahoka Daisy (Machaeranthera tanacetifolia)	N	N	N	N	N
Lemon Mint (Monarda citriodora)	F	F	N	F	N
Missouri Primrose (Oenothera missouriensis)	N	F	N	N	N
Purple Prairie Clover (Petalostemum purpureum)	N	N	N	N	N
Mexican Hat (Ratibida columnaris)	F	I	S	F	F
Clasping Coneflower (Rudbeckia amplexicaulis)	N	N	N	N	N
Black-Eyed Susan (Rudbeckia hirta)	Y	Y	Y	S	S

Y=good results, N=none, F=few (< 5), S=some, I=invasive * soil is too wet and heavy for Lupine. The few we have are stunted and as of 1999 only one is surviving under the Autumn Purple Ash.

This mix did not contain any grasses, and most of the so-called natives were not native to SW Ohio. The Mexican Hats are an invasive weed that we are trying to control. We will pull all that we find in 1997. We also did not like Plains Coreopsis because it grew too tall. I think we have eliminated all of these. October, 1995 In Late October we ordered plants and seeds from Prairie Nursery in Wisconsin. We had a little more knowledge about what grows native around here so we could pick better plants. We still did not order any grasses.

1995	1999
Here are two tables of plants purchased in October of 1995 and how they are doing. The first table is plants purchased, and the second is from seed.

PLANT NAME	#	1996	1997	1998
Butterflyweed (Asclepias tuberosa)	4	3	0	0
Sky Blue Aster (Aster azureus)	4	2	0	0
New Jersey Tea (Ceonothus americanus)	6	5	5	5
Western Sunflower (Helianthus occidentalis)	6	2	2	1
Ironweed (Veronia fasciculata)	6	2	2	0

PLANT NAME	1996	1997	1998
Spiderwort (Tradescantia ohiensis)	S	Y	Y
Bergamot (Monarda fistulosa)	0	4	S
Nodding Pink Onion	0	1	S
Purple Coneflower	0	Y	Y
Great Blue Lobelia	S	Y	Y

April, 1996 I was in the Wal-mart garden department and found a pitiful looking bag of 25 Liatris spicata bulbs on sale for about $10. I picked them up and planted them all along the fence on the side and of the wildflower patch. Most of the bulbs survived and bloomed! I plan to do this again in the spring of 97. It was also in April that we finally ordered some native grass plants. 3 Little Bluestem (Schizachyrium scoparium) and 3 Northern Dropseed (Sporobolus heterolepis). All the plants survived. June, 1996 It was around this time that we really started focusing on ecosystems instead of just gardening. My first realization of Ecosystem Management came from reading the book 'Miracle Under the Oaks' by William K. Stevens. This book tells the story of prairie restoration in the suburbs of Chicago. We both liked the book so much that we joined The Nature Conservancy , the organization responsible for these and other ecological restorations. We also read the book 'Noah's Garden - Restoring The Ecology Of Our Own Back Yards' by Sara Stein. This book made us realize how lawns and some exotic plants are destroying our environment and the wildlife that lives in it. We now had changed our ideas of what we wanted the backyard to be. We wanted to restore the forest on most of the hillside, and at the same time we wanted to keep wildflowers at the top of the hill. We killed the rest of the grass on the west side. Now over half of the backyard was devoted to anything but lawn. In late June we ordered some additional seeds including native grasses. I planted both Little Bluestem and Northern Dropseed in pots, but only Little Bluestem grew. I want to get to a point where I can propagate these plants myself. September, 1996 We eliminated the grass growing on the southeast side of the backyard, and killed grass along the east side in order to create a wildlife corridor. We planted trees, shrubs, and plan to plant wildflower patches in the Spring of 97. We also planted the Little Bluestem that I grew in pots. Little Bluestem is incredibly easy to grow in a pot, and we plan to grow more in 97.