Springing Forth- the beginings of our gardens

Primrose

 We've been cleaning up branches and residual leaves, and enjoying the re-discovery of the multitudes of plant life growing around Redwoodshire.  This is our 2nd spring here, and we've forgotten which perennials we have growing.  We love SPRING.  We love gardening.  In addition to cleaning up and making plans for what plants to buy and grow, the Laird has been busy readying the garden for another season of vegetable growing.

Helleborus

The Rock border

First things first.... the garden fence that the Laird and his father built last year, unfortunately did not survive the winter.  The laird purchased chicken wire and put in a few more posts and spent the morning with a few of his buddies building a new fence for this year.  We're hoping this fence lasts longer than the last.  Alas, everything is a learning process!


Lady genevieve and I built a "rock row" as a border for one of our flower beds near the house.  We moved some plants and made the bed a little smaller. We happen to have a huge rock pile next to the barn- which is where we picked our rocks from.  She had loads of fun helping me place the rocks.  The border looks nice, as it marks the end of the flower bed and the beginning of the sparsely growing grass.  Hopefully we can build up some good thick grass in place of where we shrunk the flower bed.




RHUBARB-
The rhubarb has emerged and is growing big and strong.





 PEAS- KALE/ SPINACH-

These are cold weather crops, which means the seeds can be directly sown into the ground up to 6 weeks before the last frost.  We learned this bit of information last year.  And though we got a late start on these seeds, we still had an excellent harvest of peas and kale.  The kale and peas have just sprouted.

Emerging Asparagus

ASPARAGUS-
The Laird planted about 10 asparagus roots last year, and 6 of them sprouted and grew.  Asparagus is a perennial, which means it comes back from year to year.  It takes about 3 years for the plants to get established and able to produce an edible crop.  He purchased another 10 roots this year to build the asparagus bed even fuller.  Though last years asparagus has yet to sprout, the new roots are popping up through the soil.  The laird was worrying about last years plants- but he dug around and found an asparagus head down in there and was encouraged to find that they were not dead but just a little slower to sprout (probably a little deeper in the ground).


STRAWBERRIES-
We added a few strawberry plants and roots to our garden collection.  We will see what happens.

Budding Blueberry Bush

BLUEBERRIES/ RASPBERRIES-
Unfortunately, the dear love snacking on the new growth of our blueberry and raspberry plants.  We've built little cages and enclosures for each of the blueberry plants, but the dear still did a number on some of our better blueberry bushes over the winter months.  The good news is that none of them are dead- but it will stunt the growth of the plants for sure.  The raspberries have sent out a lot of new shoots and are spreading better than we've experienced at our previous house (which had far less sun).  We're excited to see our raspberry hedge row get a little thicker this season.  Hopefully the deer will either stay away from the new shoots, or we'll figure out the best way to protect them.

Shasta Daisy

Delphinium

FLOWER HILL-

Lupine

The flower hill that I started last season had a rough start, as the deer chewed down everything that had begun to grow- especially the tulips (not sure why I thought they would do well out there as I know deer love tulips).  They also chewed down the irises and the day lilies.  Things seem to be growing now, and the Delphinium, Shasta Daisies, Iris, Day Lilies, Peonies, Hydrangea, Poppies, and Lupine are getting bigger.  Discouraged at first, we are now looking forward to seeing what this season will bring with the little attempt at landscaping the hill where we get the most sunshine at Redwoodshire.

Iris

I have spent a bit of time moving plants around the property.  There are some things that are planted in the shade that don't seem to be achieving their potential, so I have found sunnier spots to place them.  Also trying to split and spread some of our iris, day lillies and hosta, to help make the current flower beds fuller.  I got an idea to clean up the golden rod weeds growing on the hill in front of our house, near the driveway, and plant perennial wildflower seed.  The seeds are ordered, and I have been clearing the weeds out little by little.  Hopefully with a little work, we can build up a nice wildflower hill in front of our house.

Looking down driveway from the road- Future Wildflower Hill

What we're currently learning is that we need to focus our energies on one or two flower beds/ areas each year, rather than doing a little bit here, there and everywhere.  We have a lot of property, and when our focus is spread out, it doesn't feel as though we've done much.  So though I got distracted with the wildflower hill, we've picked a small bed along the side of our house that we're going to hopefully fill with Hosta, and fall bulbs (tulips, hyacinths, and daffodils)- all those get planted in the Fall.  Since there isn't much too do in the meantime, we'll just have the plan ready for when the Fall comes and it's time to buy and plant those bulbs.  And then next Spring we've hopefully get to enjoy the fruit of focusing on a small area.