Yesterday while working on the fire pit I saw little white flowers off in the distance at the other end of the lot. When I walked over it was overjoyed to see native white trout lilies growing under one of my massive trees. Trout lilies are hard to germinate from seed and once they do germinate, they can take multiple years to bloom. It was like I had found a patch of 4 leaf clovers.
I’m going to take this as a sign I’m on the right path.
One of the mature White Oaks at the Orchard.
In addition to that, the 3 old growth trees on my lot are white oaks which are a slow growing species that can live for several hundred years. Truly invaluable.
BUT there is a hedge of invasive Asian bush honeysuckle (Lonicera morrowii) and common buckthorn growing between my lot and the neighboring vacant lot. Without knowing where our boundary lines are I don’t know what’s mine to cut down and what’s not. I sent a letter to the neighboring lot owner’s primary residence, but never got a reply. But even still, if I can clear 3/4 of the invasive species the other 1/4 will continue to encroach on my lot.
So I called some recommended land surveyor companies and got quotes of $550 and $350. There are sections of rusted ornamental fence along with some wonky fence posts still there so maybe I should just use those as my boundary markers for now? I also found this post at the end of the lot, kind of looks like a survey post to me, what do you think?
How did the COFW determine a boundary all these years when they mowed? A land survey with the purchase of the lot would be incredibly helpful. After all, they are the keeper of all that information.
Should I use this and save myself $350? I’d love to buy the lot next door and use the survey money for that instead. So I’d know both where my initial lot ends and the full scope of the lot that butts up next to a house.
Non-native and invasive Asian Honeysuckle
Non-native invasive common buckthorn
And I’d like to add, I’m not some botanical whiz kid I’m just resourceful. Among other things, I use the friendly people in the Indiana Native Plant Society Facebook Group to help me identify and learn about native species.