When we moved from Ithaca to Chicago the movers used that rectangular newsprint-like packing paper -- and a lot of it. When we got to Chicago -- because we expected to buy a house there and move again soon -- we smoothed out each piece of paper, stacked and stored it in boxes. We used it for packing when we moved to the rental in Oxford, and once again smoothed out each sheet, stacked and stored it. When we moved to our ranchburger I couldn't bring myself to part with the paper, so again, smooth, stack and store. I should add that a couple of people who helped us unpack in various locations might have thought we were a wee bit crazy with the paper thing.
This summer we needed to make a BIG planting bed around some newly installed trees and shrubs to help mark the edge of our property and prepare for what will someday be a natural border visual screen. We learned from making an earlier bed what backbreaking work it is to dig up sod, shake the soil back into the bed, and get rid of the grass and roots. I read about a way to make garden beds by putting down newspaper and topping with mulch. The grass dies, the newspaper composts, and you don't lose any precious topsoil in the process. So...... out came the packing paper. We marked the bed and put down the paper seven or eight sheets thick and overlapped by several inches, and topped it paper with about four inches of mulch.
It just seemed so right.
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