It’s a start…

I know what I want the pond to look like when it’s all finished.  I know what I the whole yard to look like, but getting there is slow when I’m the primary landscaper!  So I do a little at a time, moving along at what feels like a snails pace, but loving what happens when the pieces start to come together. 
  I started last week on building the wall around the waterfall box.  I had to level the dirt a little and I still need to order the ‘faux’ rock cover for the canister itself, but today I finally finished it up! 
I also started on some landscaping at the edges.  I want to cut back on some of the rock and liner that is showing.  I don’t know that I’ll leave the rocks there as edging, but for now they are making a break between mulch and grass.  I planted some Carex and ferns in this bed, along with some annual salvia and miniature zinnias.
I did something similar on the other side scale wise.  That bed has a butterfly weed, a miniature goldenrod and the annual salvias.  Now where my vision is really grand is on this side.  I either want to level this area out and put down small stones, a few stepping stones to set the chairs and a small table on, or I want to build a very low deck.  I want a pergola over this sitting area and I want to plant my native wisteria and native clematis to climb either side.  Where that dirt pile is I want to clear out and plant that area full of ferns so it looks lush and cool!  Yeah, the vision is there, the implementation just takes time!!

Pictures...

I've always loved taking pictures, I've never mastered the art of getting what I see with my eyes to match the image that comes out of the camera though. I got a new camera for my birthday and it makes taking really nice pictures pretty easy. I still haven't mastered the what I see is what I get, but I'm working on it!

So today I'm sharing some of my recent pictures!
Up first the bandit of my feeders! I bought hot pepper bird seed to stop the squirrels from eating it. Guess my squirrels didn't get the memo that they aren't supposed to like their food spicy!

These are my yellow Louisiana Iris blooming in the pond. In the background, my well trained fish that believe if I'm near it means food!

Here we have Ms. Zoe she looks like she's thinking about something really complicated to me.

Then there's Dakota who debates where to lay in the sun and when he gets to eat next...

Finally, one of my favorite birds a Cardinal. They are beautiful year round!

A visitor...

I live in the woods and I have lots of animals around the house all the time. I'm not talking about my pets, I'm talking about the wild ones. Now our property is densely forested and so even in the middle of the day with the sun blazing, places in my yard can look dusky. That of course means that those furry friends that you don't normally see out during the day will occasionally show up in the yard. It isn't uncommon for me to see deer, fox and yes even raccoons mingling with the squirrels and birds.

So when I opened the door to let the dogs out and saw there was company in the yard I wasn't overly surprised. Though I suspect my asking of my visitor to please cease in eating my birdseed was a bit of a surprise to them. I didn't let the dogs out, but came back inside and grabbed some of the hot dog rolls that were destined to be critter cuisine anyway and took them out to my company. Below the inspection process is taking place, the weary eyes watched me as I tossed the bread into the vicinity, but quickly came to investigate as I stepped back to the porch.



My visitor didn't take long in deciding that the Martin's Potato roll was good enough to eat and wasted no time in taking their snack to a near by tree to eat, while of course keeping an eye on the strange lady that tossed something so delectable out!


I sat for a long time on the porch watching my furry company enjoying the snack. I'm so incredibly blessed to be able to live so close to nature and even more blessed I think, that I have the sense to appreciate what it is that I do have. I truly believe that all animals can sense when they are safe and I really like to believe that all of my visitors, furred, feathered and even scaled know that here, they are indeed welcome, safe and appreciated!

Critters & Blooms...

I haven't seen this azalea bloom in a long time, though I haven't seen most of my azaleas blooming in years thanks to the deer that find them delicious! However, for whatever reason they left this one and a few spots of some others planted at the front of the house alone and so I get to see the blooms and so thought I should photograph them for posterity!

I didn't plant them, they were here when I moved in, those and hosta which are two plants that the deer seem to find irresistible. I'm not sure what makes them so, hosta I would think wouldn't taste like much at all, lettuce I would guess and well azaleas are so woody and just don't seem appealing in the least. Thing is deer will eat roses too, so that right there should tell me that they don't really have refined taste buds!

On the subject of animals in the garden what is it with the squirrels and their need to dig up that which I plant? While roaming through my garden this morning I came across one of my newly planted Heuchera that had been taken out of the spot I had planted it and set aside. It was as if something thought there was so treasure buried below the plant! I would like to kindly ask that in the future once they see there is no treasure in there, could they please replant the plant, I feel it is the least they can do!

I took my mom to two plant sales in the past two weeks, one was sponsored by the American Horticultural society, the other by Friends of the National Arboretum. I came away with quite the haul of plants, including a couple of dwarf maples and a variegated dogwood.

I love Columbines, I have the native variety forming a nice little colony and a chocolate double flower variety, so I'm always on the lookout for ones that really catch my eye. This beauty did just that at the AHS sale, the white is so white and the purple so pure, it reminded me of violets!







Then I came across this one at the FONA sale and well the size of those lovely white blooms was just too much for me to resist! I have a solid yellow one growing next to my porch but the snow seems to have stunted it a bit. It's not blooming yet and the plant is now half the size it was. I'm hoping that it just slowed it down and didn't really do any serious damage. I know that several of my hellebores that were stuck under the snow, now look much smaller and younger as well but them seem to be recovering.


I've got several days worth of planting ahead of me. I also have several shrubs that need to be transplanted so add a few more days to that! Good thing I get lots of gardening time these days!

A snakes tale..

Elaphe obsoleta (a.k.a. the Black Rat Snake) is indeed a friend of mine!

I know, I know the creepy factor is too much for a lot of people, including the man that I am married to! However even he has developed an appreciation for this particular snake. See it has been living in the garage (I knew this he didn't) for a long, long time.

Each spring I go about planting up my flower boxes on deck and I happened to look down to see a tiny head poking out from between the door and the wall. I moved in for a closer look and it was a very small black snake. We looked at each other a bit and I went back to planting my boxes and it went back to laying in the sun by the door. I saw the snake in the garage several times over the course of the summer and duly noted that the mice droppings had ceased appearing near my birdseed. I liked the arrangement as I will never, ever poison anything!



The following years proved to be replicas of the past, first spring day I open the door and start to plant up the boxes is the first spring day my scaled pal would appear. The above picture was taken in 2006. This snake doesn't so much as flinch when I walk past it, it's pretty cool and well what can I say, I love snakes!

Randy however wasn't really brought up to share that sentiment and it's taken a lot of work on my part to convince him that snakes aren't bad and that they really don't want to be bothered by you. It took a major event though to seal this snakes fate! See one day Randy discovered my friend in the garage during the early summer of 2009 and promptly insisted that I remove it. I tried to explain to him that the snake was keeping the mice out of the garage but he wasn't buying it. So I had to relocate my pal down into the woods.

Well, it wasn't long after that, that the mice started getting into the birdseed again. It wasn't until they brought their furry fury onto his car or rather into it, that he realized the value of that snake! You see the mice decided to chew their way into his car and they filled his blower up with dog treats!
They also chewed some of the leather on his seats, ate part of his bluetooth headset and to top it all off one got stuck inside the venting and died and wow did that smell! He had to completely disassmeble the dash to remove the treats and the body!


Well a few months later he came into the house and asked me to come out into the garage. There sitting perched atop his tool box (and looking quite smug) was my pal. Randy asked would I please move him, making sure to let me know that I didn't have to relocate him, just get him off the tool box. So I ushered him away to the other side of the garage.

Needless to say I was very happy to see him again this spring in the garage.


Once my pal got warmed in the sun I was really impressed! The size alone let's me know that I won't have any problems with mice as long as this one is around.


It's a face that I love and one that will always be welcome in my yard and garage!!!!

Mulch much...

16 yards of the beautiful brown stuff was delivered on Monday, I've been spreading all week! It's a painstakingly slow process when the temperatures top out in the 90's and the plants are pushing up faster than I can spread. I keep saying that the best time to mulch is in the winter but I can't bring myself to go out and mulch when it's cold.






In any event the finished product is so worth it! I've been working on getting the vision of this woodland garden out of my head and into reality and finally after a lot of work it's almost done. All that is left is to add some gravel for the path and of course to get some more plants! I'm thinking some dwarf evergreens, ferns, heucheras and hellebores!


One vision down, oh so many more to go!!!

Spring springing...

Maryland is notorious for it's crazy spring weather, one day it can be 70 and sunny, the next snow can be falling on the daffodils. For me it's part of what I love about this state, that we get seasons and sometimes, mini seasons within the seasons!

Last week and weekend was warm and lovely, I got my first sun pinking of the season while raking leaves out of the flowers beds. Of course now today the weather has turned cold and I can't help but feel a wee bit of guilt over the exposed plants that are emerging from the warm ground that haven't been blanketed by mulch yet! In any event, my garden bug has bitten hard and I found myself buying dahlia and peony tubers yesterday as well as picking up a couple new pairs of gardening gloves. My credit card took another hit as I pre-ordered some new hellebore's and bleeding hearts. I can hardly wait for things to arrive so that I can start planting, today however I will just have to be content to look at the lovely flower images online and in my gardening magazines.