More Plants for the Backyard

The landscaper arrived with some of the trees for the yard- they are the two Kousa Dogwoods that go in each corner behind the patio/pavilion.

We also have a cute bird residing in the birdhouse hanging on the fence!

With those trees planted (and a few other small bushes), the landscaper said we are at the top of the estimate he had given us- there had been more stonework/steps than he had originally anticipated.  

This was a bit disappointing- so much empty space that we thought would be filled with plants! But we decided that we can do the rest of the plantings ourselves and headed over to the garden center.

Spirea Bushes filled the back of the car!

We got herbs to make an herb garden inside the circle of boxwoods:

Spearmint, Italian Parsley, Foxley Thyme, Sweet Marjoram, Upright (pink flower) Rosemary, Berggarten Variegated Sage, Raspberry Dressing Rumex, Lemon Thyme, and Basil. 

Some additional plants that we picked up are:

10 Double Play Pink Spirea Bushes, 5 Japanese Andromeda bushes, Pincushion Flower, Garden Phlox, Digitalis, Astilbe, Balloon Flower, Blue Mirror Delphinium, Balmy Lilac Bee Balm, Pachysandra, and Variegated Weigela.

Other plants that we moved from other parts of the yard were Hostas, Lily of theValley, Coreopsis, Climbing Hydrangea, Azalea, Peonies, Lavender Bushes (some of these might not make it- they were a bit bedraggled).  There are a few others from our other gardens that we moved but can't remember the names of!

Next step is the landscaper bringing in a lot of mulch!

Planting Plans

While waiting for the fence guys to come back, the landscaper came over and gave us the plans that he drew up for plantings in the garden.

Here's where we were with the hardscape plans:

Here are the planting plans:

We like most of the plants he chose.  We may decide to swap a couple of them out for some of our favorites that we already have.
-We had dug up a bunch of them and placed them safely in our fenced in veggie garden (which I just realized I never posted about building last year, so I'll have to come back to that in a future post!)
-I love lavender plants, however I'm not sure about filling in the insides of the boxwood garden around the sundial with them... I found this herb garden plan and think maybe I want to do something like that!  It seems more colonial :)

Picking Garden Fountain

As the gardening season is coming to an end (at least for me!) I realize I hadn't posted about my picking garden in a while... and I missed the newest addition- a fountain that was given to us this summer by my parents!

After re-arranging some plants, we placed it right in the middle.  

It's more like a birdbath at this point, since we don't have electric going to that garage.  But Mike did some prep work for that before we had the driveway paved, so maybe we'll put that on next year's to do list.

 

Happy October!

Look what's growing in the goat yard....

Can you believe that's a big pumpkin vine?  And if you look inside...

There are 8 of them growing!

We often throw extra veggies in the goat pen for a treat.  

We must have tossed some pumpkins back there last fall!  

I'm happy the goats haven't treated it as a buffet!

We picked them over the weekend and have decorated around the yard...
-2 on the fence posts of the driveway leading to the barn
-1 by the back driveway entrance, on our sign post
-2 on the stone wall at the entrance to my picking garden
-3 on the front porch

Little Garden Signs

The picking garden is coming along nicely...
The only thing bothering me was the little signs for the flowers (which were plastic) getting broken & lost... and just looked like litter in the flower bed.

Then I came across this idea at LoveThemMadly...
So, I decided to modify and make some little signs of my own.

Supplies:
-Corks
-Skewers
-Spray Paint

Happily, I had all of these on hand.




I first tried spray painting them over newspaper...



But it was taking too long with them having to be turned, multiple coats, etc.

Assembling and then painting upright worked much better:

(By the way, I cut each of the skewers in half)




I used a sharpie marker to write flower name on it...

They look really cute, match the color of the garage, and I'm hoping they will hold up better than the plastic ones!

The garden is starting to fill in a bit!
The blank row near the front is where the daffodil bulbs are.

Picking Garden Update

The picking garden is done!

After building the wall, and clearing the inside, we've completed the rototilling, added topsoil, and purchased some plants!

Here's the in-progress... after adding the topsoil, but before the plants were in

And the reverse:

We need deer-resistant plants.  

Rutgers has a great website that rates plants on a scale ranging from "Rarely Damaged" by deer to "Frequently Severely Damaged" by deer.  The only tricky part is searching for the common names.

Here's what we're trying out:

Delphinium
"Seldom" Deer Damaged

Baby's Breath
"Seldom" Deer Damaged

Lavendar-
"Rarely" Deer Damaged

Sea Holly
"Frequently" Deer Damaged
Ooops!

Lilyleaf Ladybell
Couldn't find on Rutgers site,
but listed as "Deer Resistant" on other sites

Checkermallow
"Occasionally" Deer Damaged

Blanket Flower
"Occasionally" Deer Damaged

Tall Bearded Iris
"Rarely" Deer Damaged

Delphinium
"Seldom" Deer Damaged

Salvia
"Seldom" Deer Damaged

Catmint
"Rarely" Deer Damaged

Speedwell
"Seldom" Deer Damaged

Globe Thistle
Couldn't find on Rutgers site,
listed as "Deer Resistant" on others

We shouldn't have gotten the Sea Holly, since that is a "Frequently Deer Damaged" plant.  But since we had the two boys with us at the nursery, I consider only one error to be a success!  We'll plant it in the middle and Mike will spray it with the deer spray, so hopefully they'll stay away.

We also moved some daffodils & lilies that we already had, and will continue to do this as we re-arrange some of the other flower beds.

Here's how we look all planted!

We put the larger plants against the garage wall, and small plants towards the front.

The very front row contains the bulbs (daffodils & lilies).

The plants will fill in as they grow, and we plan to continue to add to our variety, picking a new plant up when we run to a nursery or home improvement store for other things.

Catching Up- April 2013

Here are some random updates made around the house...

I once again swapped out the photographs in the downstairs hallway.  This is the third swap after my original pics and then my St. Pat's selection.  I added another tulip, and brought back the original tulip and the hydrangea.

I love the bright colors for spring!
Here's a shot of them from coming down the stairs...

It's weird how the wall color looks brown-gray in some light, and blue-gray in other.
It's really somewhere in between!

The Picking Garden is slowly coming along... All of the weeds have been removed.
As you can see by the toys left behind, the kids helped with that!

Our next step is to add topsoil (we have a big pile on the back of the property) & roto-till it.

I updated the tree planting post, to add the specific types of apple, peach and cherry trees.
When we went out to buy the second apple tree that we needed for pollination, our oldest asked for  some plum trees.  Why not?  It needed a pollinator too, so we came home with three:
A Gala Semi-Dwarf Apple Tree
A Methley Plum Tree
A Burbank Seim-Dwarf Plum Tree

We planted these back in the same "orchard" area we have going.