Order Requires Destruction or Playing With Fire

Order Requires Destruction or Playing With Fire

Using a flamethrower to destroy the clover and reset the system.

Burning Parterres into the DMZ.

The parterre completely planted and the first spread of available herbs this late in the season.

It is a maxim central to the human and natural experience; Order requires destruction or playing with fire. I have regularly used a flamethrower to rid the yards of Mezzacello of grass rhizomes and weeds. This time I am also resetting the acidity and Ph.

Yin and Yang

Yin requires Yang. Not every time mind you, but often enough that it is a central tenant of literature and culture. In this case, we created parterre garden beds with the intention of adding a boxwood knot garden and a simple beneficial herbs garden at Mezzacello.

Over the winter - even with a layer of acid promoting pine mulch - a forest of clover had sprung up in the parterre. Not a big deal. Clover sets nitrogen from the atmosphere, so it’s not the worst weed to over winter with, but eventually it needs to go.

Blank Canvas

The fastest way to kill clover is with fire. So I took a flame thrower to this bed. It now looks like an ash blank canvas.

Now the surface is prepared and the nitrogen fixing roots remain. The next step is to square up the lines of the parterre. That’s what is happening with the white strings.

Then we’ll reset the lines of the parterre. Finally we’ll use a gas-powered auger to mechanically drill all 32 (x2 - there are two parterres) of the 8” x 8” holes for setting the gallon boxwood plants.

The limestone stoop to a former Greek Revival townhouse that once stood on this site.

It's always good to remember to consult the "Ghost Map" of Mezzacello before we start a big project like this. See my blog post about the previous houses that were on the two plots of land that compromise the gardens. Yeah, those foundations are still there...

We’ll finish the bed off with pine mulch. After we stabilize the boxwood ecosystem, we’ll start creating the soil amendments and nutrients necessary for the herbs in the triangles of the knot garden.

It all starts with fire, effort, vision, and ash.