It’s that time of year–late summer–for a walk around my perennial garden. Enjoy the tour.
Posts Tagged ‘perennial garden’
Monday, And I Managed To Make One Decision
March 31, 2014
I’ve decided to sell one-year-old Pretty Boy. He likes to charge me, and although I stop him with a broom slap he sometimes comes back for more. He’s never expressed aggression toward my husband. And I’m the one who feeds Pretty Boy. He needs a nice home where women will not come in contact with him. I won’t sell him to a family with children, for stew, or cock-fighting. Placed in the right environment, Pretty Boy could be a good asset to a flock of hens. I’m hoping to find the right home, even if I have to give Pretty Boy away.
We have hundreds of birds on our property. This time of year, early mornings begins with a chorus of songbirds in the perennial garden. I suspect the music they sing is about an attractive mate or an expectant brood.
The perennial garden is a grocery outlet to many fowl, humming birds included. Every day, I watch a half-dozen birds shift through the top soil at the garden’s entrance. While the birds scratch for grub soil flies outside the flowerbeds, and once or twice a week I have to sweep the flagstone. I don’t mind—most of the time.
If the garden’s natural habitat doesn’t satisfy the fowl, there are weeping willows, silver and Japanese maples, locusts, oaks, eucalyptus, crape myrtles, and redwoods throughout the grounds.
In the back pasture, behind the house, ducks, geese, and sandhill cranes wade in a winter stream. I am grateful for the large house windows facing the stream so I can watch these beautiful creatures from inside without disturbing them. I do wish I had a powerful camera to capture the visiting swimmers.
With all this habitat, there is no need to put up feeders or birdhouses (unless I want to attract a particular type of fowl). I was, however, inspired to construct a chicken-wire frame stuffed with fleece tags. I once read that several types of nesting material appeals to different birds. It will be interesting to learn which birds will use the fleece, if I am lucky enough to catch them in the act or spot a nest in the garden where the majority of songbirds sing.
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Pushing Towards the New Goal and Finding the Past
February 20, 2014The past two days I have looked through digital photographs, selecting the finest images to sell right here at inandaroundthegarden.net. The funds will go toward the new camera.
It was fun opening file folders, via CDs, then unexpectedly come across forgotten images from when my perennial garden was first established. So much has changed. The images you are about to view are not anything special as far as photography goes but I thought you would like to see how my garden has evolved.
The front of the garden had a variety of plants, most of which had to be cut to the ground come late-fall through early winter. During the blooming season, I had a lot of deadheading to do. It was an enormous job, inside the garden as well. As the snow-in-summer (Cerastium tomentosum) ground cover spread, I removed plants requiring too much work. Now, the bed has a beautiful display of silver green year round with white spring blossoms.
Before
After
Instead of herbs and a picket fence leading into a tiny vegetable garden, I now have Santa Barbara Daisies (Erigeron Karvinskianus) along the path and a garden house in place of the fence and vegetable area.
The potato vines behind the bench arbor was removed last fall to repair the fence. We planted new potato vines about a month ago. Soon, the fence will be completely covered again. It doesn’t take long for potato vines to take over. A few years ago, the arbor posts rotted so my husband replaced them. Then the seat rotted. I don’t think my husband is going to replace the wooden seat. A new arch, probably wrought iron, will most likely be a better solution.
In the garden’s early years, yellow columbines bordered the inside beds. It was stunning. Each spring they grew three feet tall. Then as soon as the temperatures heated up, the columbines died back and were cut to the ground. This left empty spaces until the following spring. There was too much pruning and too many empty spaces for my preference, so out they went.
Gardens and lifestyles have to marry or it just doesn’t work.
Before
After
More later on photographs for sale and fundraising for a new camera.
In and Around the Garden 