Port Potager

We added a small landscaping project to our to-do list this weekend:  It was incredibly sunny yesterday, so the photo isn’t great. Hopefully you can see that Kirk added a brick edging to delineate the small flower garden in front of my office. Before, it just kind of blended into the utility yard — and that meant that tons of weeds bled over into the flower garden. Now there are no weeds at all, since Kirk took a hoe to the whole area.  To keep the weeds out of our hair forever, we’re adding some landscaping fabric and will cover the whole area with wood chips. This will make a nice surface for the area in front of the compost bins and chicken coop, and hopefully any new weeds that pop up will be easy to pull. The new little wall left some space to plant, so I moved the hosta and black cohosh that used to be along the side wall of the office to the front bed. I also added some pink snapdragons to fill in the gaps.  From another angle, yo...

Last fall I moved into my tiny office in the back yard, and this spring Kirk put up one small finishing touch: the lattice around the foundation. That means I could plant a little garden by the stairs: This is a tough spot, because it is shaded for most of the day by the maple tree in the compost yard. Some areas get strong afternoon sun, but I would call the exposure partial shade to full shade in spots. One full shade area is along the side, where I planted hosta and snakeroot: The snakeroot has very dark leaves, which is hard to see against the compost. Here’s a better look: Both of these shade-loving plants should eventually fill in. They’ll also have fragrant flowers in the summer (hosta) and fall (snakeroot), so I’m hoping the fragrance blows right in the windows of my office. The hosta variety is "Guacamole," which is supposed to have a nice scent. This whole garden is about smelling good! Around the front (which gets a little more sun...