Our rural south Salem property is looking good in its Spring greenness

We don’t get a lot of visitors to our home in rural south Salem, Oregon. I like to share photos on my blog, so all the work we put into our property — either hired, which we’re doing more of as we age, or directly by my wife and I — gets more views than it otherwise would.

This is my favorite view of our yard. Our house is barely visible on the far left. Trees abound. The large old oak in the center of the photo, at the end of the lawn, lost a huge limb in the Great Ice Storm of 2021. Some expert trimming by Elwood’s Tree Service helped keep it healthy. Like ourselves, it isn’t as attractive as it used to be. But hopefully the tree still has a long life ahead of it.

This water feature is my wife’s special project. And source of joy. Laurel and I  love the sound of the waterfall and bubbler. It used to be an actual pond, with fish in it. However, an actual heron would eat the fish, so now we’re content with a “hidden” pond under the rocks and a metal heron.

Norberto Flores and his crew, who do most of the maintenance work on our yard, fashioned this gravel walkway a few years ago. It solved the problem of grass not being able to grow under a couple of tall fir trees on the right side of the photo. I always think of a big bend in a river when I look at it.

This Oregon Grape area under the tall fir trees and a large oak was my special labor of garden love. When I was considerably younger. The area, not all of which is shown in the photo, was overgrown with lots of fallen limbs, weeds, decaying leaves, and such. I cleared all that out and laboriously planted a bunch of small Oregon Grape plants — a native species, because the area isn’t watered in the summer. The first few years, I had to water the Oregon Grape by hand. Now they do just fine with no watering, being well established.

The reddish tree in the foreground is a replacement for a similar tree that was crushed by a huge oak limb that fell on it in the Great Ice Storm of 2021. For the first few years, it didn’t seem like the new tree would ever look anything like the old one. But — no big surprise — trees grow. It’s looking good now.

There’s a fern forest of sorts behind the water feature. We have the old growth of ferns severely cut back in early spring. Now the new fronds are appearing. Oregon is a good place for ferns, for sure.

A fresh coating of ground bark makes our yard look nicer. We used to have it blown in. Now we have Norberto’s crew spread it manually. They do a better job than a hose application does.

Since our yard is surrounded by nature, a dividing line of bark helps keep weeds from taking over our lawn. “Helps” is the operative word. Our lawn wouldn’t win any Best Looking Grass award. Nor would we want it to. Deer enjoy the clover.

A path to the left of the large oak at the end of our yard leads between Oregon Grape to the rest of our ten mostly natural acres. That’s where my wife and I usually set off on dog walks in the morning and late afternoon. I walk Mooka in the afternoon; Laurel walks her in the morning.

Our rural subdivision has easements behind most of the properties for community hiking/riding trails. When dog and human reach the easement behind our house, in this direction lies Spring Lake, a 9 acre common property. That’s where Laurel usually walks Mooks.

I usually head in the opposite direction. That white dot in the trail is our Husky mix’s tail. The trail hasn’t been mowed yet, so the vegetation is quite a bit taller than our dog.

I don’t know the name of the tall plants that line both sides of the trail for a ways. The plant has attractive bluish flowers.

After a few hundred yards, Mooka and I come to a neighbor’s property that is nicely mowed. Per usual, our dog is quite a ways ahead of me. Mooka isn’t the sort of dog that calmly follows in her human’s footsteps. She likes to lead. And get into trouble whenever she can, being an avid sniffer and hunter of rodents or anything else that captures her attention.