I've been thinking about what to do with the vacant lot across the street. (Atlanta, Piedmont 7B)
It's currently overgrown with Polk Salad, Mimosa, tall grasses and some other shallow rooted trees. (It was bulldozed 2 years ago and is where I got my garden bricks and stone) I've been pulling up much of this. There's a bit of wild strawberry and blackberry along the edges I like. My rough theory is to get rid of what I don't want and add what I do.
Down the street is a vacant block where I've been doing some blackberry harvesting. No poke salad or mimosa but a lot of blackberry and some tall (~3') yellow "weeds" with a large head (~8") of yellow flowerettes branching out from the center.
What interested me here is that large bumble bees were happily working these flowers. I don't have these in my yard.
What I'm thinking of doing is taking sections of the vacant lot and turning this into something like lasagna and adding in some bee happy flowers. The problem, aside from the work, is that I'm awash in green N and have little C, there is only a Pecan there and little leaf litter. I'd have to bring it (C) in from elsewhere.
Any rough ideas on how to bend mother nature in a direction more suitable to me?
On another note I notice that when picking blackberries that those in the shade mature first, least along are those in full sun.
Jeff