Port Potager

It’s been a tough stretch of weather, with blizzards, power outages and freezing rain, even though spring is officially here. There are a few signs, of course: But most of the garden looks more like these tree peonies, buds curled tight and waiting out the cold: So in the meantime, I decided to switch up the look of the blog to brighten things up. This June will be its sixth anniversary, so it’s definitely high time for a makeover. Let me know what you think!

Perhaps you recall that last summer I spent a month in Costa Rica . During that time, Kirk took care of the garden by himself. He did a great job keeping up with the vegetables, but there wasn't any time left for just one person (with a day job) to keep up the perennial border. So this year it needed a lot of work. All the weeds that weren't pulled last year went to seed, so I had my work cut out for me in that department. There were also some plants that didn't make it through the winter and others that were in serious need of dividing.  The best part of summer vacation is having the time to get lost in an outdoor task, and that's just what I did this past weekend. Or maybe week. It's nice to forget what day it is, too. Anyway, here's the result of the perennial border overhaul. This section will take us from the garden gate along the driveway to the corner of the bed.  Immediately outside the garden gate at the top of the driveway is a cl...

All those giant piles of snow from the historically blizzard-prone Winter of 2015 left behind a lot of damage. Though the snow was initially very light and fluffy, it compacted into a heavy block of ice as the season wore on, and all those piles pinned down the branches of shrubs and garden plants. Not all the branches were able to withstand the weight of the melting snow, as I discovered this week when I was finally able to take a proper tour of the garden without snow boots. Starting in the perennial border, our tree peony took a big hit. Many branches were broken, and I'm not sure that it will be worth saving. It will depend on what it looks like when it blooms this spring, but I feel like it might be so lopsided that it will need to be replaced. This section of the border took a big hit, as it took on snow blown from the driveway and  snow shoveled off the music room roof. Here you can get a better idea of how lopsided the tree peony is (it's the plant on ...

The past two days were just too beautiful to do anything but go for long walks in the sunshine on Plum Island: I don't think it's possible to overstate what an incredible gift this week has been. I guess if you live below the Mason Dixon line it might be hard to understand, but an 80-degree day in March in northeastern Massachusetts is nothing short of miraculous. Anyway, while I was dipping my toes in the ocean with my kids, stuff happened while I wasn't really looking, including the following: Our granite steps finally arrived! We never got around to ordering them when we finished all the bricks, but now that they are in place, it looks like they've always been there. Kirk muscled them into position while I was at the beach, so that was a doubly nice surprise.   Along with the delivery of our back steps came another giant pile of dirt from Landscaper's Depot . This is another mixture of half loam and half compost, and we need it to fi...

The perennial border is fully planted! Today I finished putting in the last plants in the spot where the giant hydrangea and wisteria were. So without further ado: This section is in the front of the house, most of which was planted a few weeks ago. The new part is the group of big puffy white flowers in the center of the photo. These are phlox, and they smell lovely. Eventually they should be much taller and rise above everything else (to be about even with the shrubs in the back). Right now they are actually shorter than the daylilies in the center of the bed, so it's a little weird. (I am not the world's most patient gardener.) If you've been keeping up with the progress of the perennial border, you've already seen this. The new phlox are to the far right of the photo, so this is now a complete view of the front of the house. This is the side of the house where the big hydrangea used to be. To the left is a smaller white (drying to pinkish) hydrangea ...