Land clearing in La Vergne, TN

Limestone close to the surface

This is Central Basin ground, about 584 feet, and the rock is never far down. Soil that thin grows eastern red cedar first, and cedar doesn’t need depth to hold. A field that stops getting cut closes in fast on ground like this. Where limestone shoulders up through the grass, the head rides higher and takes a second pass instead of hunting rock with the teeth.

Where the creek runs down to the lake

Hurricane Creek empties into Percy Priest, and the lake borders the town along its northeast edge. Bottom ground either side of a creek like that stays soft and grows hard. Privet and bush honeysuckle take a wet edge and keep it, and in a built-up town nothing is left to crowd them out. Summer pool sits at 490 feet, better than ninety feet below the town, so the last stretch down to water is steeper and rockier than the road makes it look.

What Exit 64 left behind

Warehouses and distribution buildings hold the ground around Waldron Road, which runs north off the interstate to Murfreesboro Road and south to Rock Springs Road. Subdivisions take most of the rest. In between sits the odd stuff, a strip behind a loading dock, a wooded piece between two neighborhoods, a back lot skipped while everything around it went up. A lot that tight has nowhere to stage a pile, so the mulcher grinds it where it stands.

Coming down from Lebanon

Percy Priest sits between Lebanon and La Vergne, one lake touching Wilson, Davidson and Rutherford. It is a short run southwest, and the far end is the same basin rock, only built over harder. Land like this usually needs one of two things: to open up enough to see across again, or to get clear enough that a buyer walks the back instead of guessing from the road. Cedar and honeysuckle will take either one back if nothing keeps after it.