Tree Cookie Path and Scrap-Wood Fence

Sometimes our plantings for wildlife get, well, a little wild. In this case a planting in front of our house began to spill over across the sidewalk. We didn't want to curb the plant's enthusiasm by pruning them, of course, so we looked around our place for some materials with which to hold the plants more vertical and also widen the sidewalk (which is relatively narrow).

We found some old barn siding that we'd gotten for free from a Craig's List post and cut some tree cookies (thin cross sections of a tree trunk) from an Ash that the power company had trimmed from below their wires.

Here's what we did with the old barn siding:

Here's what we did with the tree cookies:

Recent rains have turned soil to mud but luckily we had some extra gravel on hand and so used that as a base for widening the path and in which to set the tree cookies:

A couple of simple projects using free materials results in a much improved approach to the front door and...

...retains the maximum growth of native plants that support our wildlife residents. 

For example, check out the pair of garter snakes in the center of the below photos. 

These two beauties were just a few feet from us while we ate our lunch on the porch. We like to think that they feel safe since they have a welcome habitat at our place and are finding lots of bugs and small rodents to dine on. 

Oh, we did spend a bit of money on some colorful solar lights for Jennifer's birthday and  installed them along our paths to light our way on evening "yard tours".

As we like to say, "we sure had a lot of fun today." We hope that you did too!