One of the most challenging, was dismantling two large garden beds at our previous home. Our son who is renting/buying, has zero interest in gardening. The past couple years we made trips back to do weeding, but it wasn't enough to maintain them. The weeds won and my beloved garden beds became an eye sore. It was time for them to go. We pulled gazillions of the hardier remaining perennials & bulbs, moved boulders, pulled and sprayed weeds, tilled and eventually replanted the areas with grass.
Every weekend for a couple months, I would bring multiple buckets and bags filled with daffodills, iris, daylilies, clematis, bleeding heart, sedum, peony etc to transplant onto our property. Originally I wasn't going to plant any perennials here, but I just couldn't leave 20 years of treasured faithful blooms to die. At least now they have a chance, plus I had existing garden space to fill.
You may recall Brad had built a long raised bed on one side of the barn last summer. I also ended up with a couple smaller garden areas next to the house that are not mow friendly. The new beds filled up quickly with many long-time favorite plants. Extra plants and bulbs (mostly daffodils) got planted on both sides of a tree line path across from our house, that we are cleaning up. Someday it will either be a beautiful place to walk with naturalized plants, or not. Only time will tell.
I also plunked some bulbs in other key areas on our land and shared plants with neighbors & family. We will eventually do more of the same when remaining garden beds and pond get dismantled, in the backyard of our old house. It is time consuming, so we are done for this growing season.
I did research on deer resistant plants that grow in our new to me sandy loam soil (I have always grown in clay soil) and observed what bloomed in the general area. So far gardening is much easier here, especially with easier care perennials. I truly think (er' hope) most of my transplants will make it. With a tender back, it took f-o-r-e-v-e-r to replant my ridiculously excessive plant supply. I did a little at a time, most days. The beauty of naturalizing is it is one time and then the plants are on their own. They either make it or they don't.
I've always wondered why perennials cost so much, when they multiply like rabbits. Now I know, the plant cost is in the labor.
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| Leo in his garden bed |
The raised veggie bed Brad built last year passed the test and produced plenty of veggies, so he built the additional five as planned. This time he filled the bottom half with our sandy soil and hauled in good compost soil for the top half. He also MacGyvered a sprinkler, which makes watering a whole lot easier. The surrounding ground remains on the to-do landscape list, but the veggie plants are flourishing! Soooo much easier and inviting to take care of without all the bending.
One is a strawberry bed, another for cucumbers, one has beans with a few kohlrabi for Brad, we are growing carrots and leeks in another, and one bed each lower to the ground for peppers and tomatoes.
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| and then there were six |
Back in the day when bluebird numbers were declining I attended a worksop to learn how to help them out, and received plans for building a nesting house. Although I had high hopes, with three active kids building and maintaining nesting boxes got put on hold. Until this year. Brad built not one but two bluebird houses for Mothers Day, one from him and one from Tank (our dog). It was late in the nesting season, but we put them up anyways.
Two days after we mounted them at the bottom of our property, a pair of bluebirds showed up. Instead of using the boxes, they nested on our house beams. Brad said I forgot to give them directions to their new home, sigh. The male thwapped at our windows all day long. For weeks he would fly from the front of the house to the back, and sit on my hummer feeder daily, just staring at me for long periods of time...it was nothing short of weird!! I looked into the behavior and what we could do to stop him. I was afraid he was going to get hurt thwapping at the windows. Nothing seemed to help, but time. Thank goodness that crazy bird finally stopped. An example of "be careful what you wish for" ha ha!! After the current bird renters move out, hopefully next season the blue birds will find directions to the nest boxes built just for them - far far away from our windows!
Two days after we mounted them at the bottom of our property, a pair of bluebirds showed up. Instead of using the boxes, they nested on our house beams. Brad said I forgot to give them directions to their new home, sigh. The male thwapped at our windows all day long. For weeks he would fly from the front of the house to the back, and sit on my hummer feeder daily, just staring at me for long periods of time...it was nothing short of weird!! I looked into the behavior and what we could do to stop him. I was afraid he was going to get hurt thwapping at the windows. Nothing seemed to help, but time. Thank goodness that crazy bird finally stopped. An example of "be careful what you wish for" ha ha!! After the current bird renters move out, hopefully next season the blue birds will find directions to the nest boxes built just for them - far far away from our windows!
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| window view |
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| someone was watching me, constantly |
Gardening and tending to our land has been such a welcome respite in the midst of the pandemic madness. Some of the perennial transplants are already blooming, and that makes my heart happy.
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| long time no see, sunset at home May 2020 |
4 comments:
Your place looks beautiful. I love the raised beds they really do help with bending and back pain. Glad you got your perennials and plants home I hope they make it. It would be a shame to lose them all after having them for so many years. I love perennials and try to only plant them so I just have to do it once.
As for the crazy bird twhaking the window. I have one red cardinal here for over a year and a half that bangs into my windows and follows me from room to room mostly every day. I have to say it's really annoying. I'll go out and feed the birds but he'll just keep it up.I was going to get him a little kamikaze helmet because he's got to be rattling his brain doing this!
p.s. Love to see a picture of Tank! Leo looks very relaxed.
What beautiful planters! And raised bed gardens are the way to go. Our kids just built some amazing ones, and I asked them if they could help us next year. That bird! Yeah, maybe they need a little sign on their new home. Vacancies. We have birds fly into our windows, too. One year it was a falcon flying into them over and over and over. It was right after our dog, Maggie, died and it lasted for a week.
I have an old wagon that I use as a raised bed, usually I have flowers in it but this year I planted green onions, lettuce, spinach and a cucumber plant in it. And marigolds and nasturtiums to keep them company. Most of my garden is on the ground though and I get lots of stretching exercise weeding!
I find that if the raised beds aren't waist high it hurts to weed and I'm better off weeding where I totally bend down- I have a raised bed that is thigh high and I end up sitting on the edge of it to weed. I have degenerative discs in my lower back so bending there is a problem. It's also why I am mote comfortable trotting my horse rather than loping. It's very hard for me to sit the lope.
The window wing flapping thing is different then window strikes, or when a bird plain old doesn't see the window. I tried not to get too into my head about the bluebird...if you google it, superstition is it means death for someone in the home. I sure as hell hoped that wasn't the reason!!! There were other things that came up in my search, like it was "asking for help" because wasps were invading it's nest etc. Our special indoor cat (Sydney) who loved me best, was laid to rest after almost 16 years a few weeks prior. One of the bird houses is close by his grave. I couldn't help but wonder if in some way that bird was channeling or ?? him. It sure wanted my attention and stared intensely at me. I can't imagine a Falcon doing anything to my windows, those are big birds!!
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