Port Potager

Yesterday I wrote about the half of the perennial border that runs along the driveway . Today we'll walk around the corner to see the rest of it along the path that leads across the yard to the front door. Around the corner from the climbing roses, Siberian irises, and sedum ground cover is some white salvia. Behind the salvia is some red bee balm, which is just starting to bloom. The bees love  this section of the flower garden! There's also a male holly busy and another smallish peony (I really like the way these look even when the bloom is over, so I have a lot of them). Across the front is a wide swath of hardy mums that will bloom in the fall. Like I said, there are a lot of chrysanthemums here. Behind the mums are white lilies, Shasta daisies, and the female holly bush (that's the one that will have the berries in the winter). Beyond the holly the border widens near the front door. Across the back is a boxwood, rhododendron, and a big clump o...

In addition to the orchard damage from the ridiculous Winter of 2015 , I am also planning a more complete damage report on the other areas of the garden that got trashed by all the snow. But it can wait. Because, I mean, look what happened today: That, Dear Reader, is an open window.  (There's also a rhododendron with a pretty big hole in the middle thanks to some branches broken beneath the weight of the snow, but never mind that for now.) It got well and truly warm today. Warm enough to do the garden chores (feeding the chickens and gathering sap at this time of year) without a coat on.  And warm enough to notice that the garden is finally starting to grow.  Tulips have broken the soil. They seems to be growing more quickly that the daffodils so far, but that might just be a function of where the snow melted first. Even more exciting, this tiny Siberian squill is starting to show actual petal color. Woo hoo! But best of al...

When I wasn't at the ball fields for the kids' baseball games this past (long) weekend, I finally was able to tackle a project I'd been meaning to get to all spring. The weather decided to cooperate (mostly), and I buckled down got to work on updating the perennial border.  The harsh winter we had wasn't at all kind to some of our perennials. Several plants that normally wouldn't have trouble overwintering died back to just a few scraggly stems, or bit the dust completely. Some casualties included both artemisia, some stonecrop, the carnations, and most of a heucherella (if you're really interested in the evolution of the border, you can scroll through previous posts about it to see just what I'm talking about). This left me with some holes to fill this year, which I did my moving some existing things around and buying some new plants. My hatchback full of plants include a white peony ("Mrs. Edward Harding"), three white salvia (...