2019 – Wellyssa's Womb

Early Summer Flowers

Early summer is for Lavender! The Lavender/purple aliums self seeded themselves into the day lily garden. They were a wonderful surprise the first year they sprang up. I had planted the aliums along the hedge of the day lily garden, next to the hedge, several years ago in an attempt to fill up a blank space there. Over time the day lilies took over the whole space and the lilies threw their seed out into the day lily garden. I love the result! And the best part: I didn’t have to dig in those huge lily bulbs.

The lavender blooms of the Korean dwarf lilac hide the interior of the front porch giving privacy throughout the summer, and their fragrance is very strong. You can smell them from the driveway as you approach the front door. Wonderful greeting!

Early summer brings Iris and flowering shrubs to the Willow garden. Pink blooming Red Sand cherry, white blooming leather leaf Viburnum, and pink blooming Black lace viburnum (not in bloom here – it blooms later in the summer).

The gold mound Spirea puts on a brilliant show with just the leaves, in bright yellow and chartreuse. Later it will flower in a delicate pink as the yellow leaves mature to a slightly darker green.

The willows themselves, which grow in the middle of this garden, also flower, but their flowers are

insignificant if you aren’t up close. They look like little yellow bottle brushes, 2″ long and about 1/4″ around.

South Noodle Garden – Rust and Orange iris and Ohio Buckeye Tree

These rust and orange mixed Iris are filling in wonderfully in the street-side noodle gardens. The baby buckeye trees is struggling – but I’ve been babying him along – time will tell.

Butterfly garden – Iris (??, Hello darkness, Sharp Dressed Man)

I love the combination of purples in this Iris grouping.

The witches hat cupola looks wonderful with the purple aliums dancing in front.

Pom Poms! There are actually 4 shrubs here. I planted 2 on each side of the drive river bed. I had planned on putting an arched trellis between the shrubs to created a walkway to the stone patio which is behind them, but they have grown together now, so I’m not sure if I have the heart to cut them back.

The yellow leafed ninebark is striking with the red barberry.

Bees, second attempt!

April 2017 I received my first bee package. I nurtured them through that first summer and winter. In October of 2017 I have a vibrant hive, with two deeps installed and 1 super in place for the winter. At inspection we estimated approximately 80,000 bees and plenty of honey to get through the winter. and yes, they made it through the winter but in April of 2018, I went outside one bright spring morning, and found the hive completely abandoned.

My local bee expert came over to take a look, and he found no sign of mites, disease or vermin, and the bees had left a completely full, 10 frame deep of honey. I think they must have swarmed and moved on. Me as a first time bee keeper didn’t know to look for signs of them needing to split or swarm with new queen, so I lost that first hive, and it was too late to order new bees that season. So I packed everything up into storage, including 80 lbs of honey in that deep.

I order bees again this spring, and just got them into the hive, along with 4 of the full frames of honey. That should be enough to get them going. but I will be keeping a closer eye on them this time.

Spring Colors – 2019

More viburnum and Sand cherry on the interior side of the willow garden

The street side view of the Willow garden: Sand cherry, viburnum, Golden spirea and black lace Elderberry.

Red and yellow – south/east shoulder garden

I love all the different shades of green on the interior south berm

Stage God, enjoying his mushrooms! Daylilies have burst out of the ground!

The Russian Olive, and behind that, the Locust tree. Both were pruned hard in January. I’m keeping them in a dwarf size.

The oldest apple tree in the orchard. Leafing out after a hard prune in January.

First year transplanted shrubs on the new mid-west berm. this berm was installed to cup around the shape of what will eventually be a pond.

these are white tulips with light lavender blushing. the color doesn’t show as well as I would have like in the pic. but they are in the garden next to the water dragon.

My outside kitty sits calmly on the back of the dragon.

A declaration of War!

Vole damage in the herb garden. I don’t know how they got in, the floor of the garden is lined with chicken wire and the picket side slats at lined with rabbit wire. But they got in and pretty much destroyed everything. I have a small patch of oregano left, and lemon balm, one of the 5 golden marjorams made it, and the betony and comfrey were untouched as was the chives, of course. Everything else is gone. Literally, gone.

So I’m going to toss poison way down into the holes, then the next week I’m going to throw around some deterrent pellets. Then I need to re-level the beds and bring in new composted garden soil. I will do this over a period of weeks. Meanwhile, I need to try to figure out how they got in there in the first place.

Maybe I’ll buy some of the perennial herbs and get them planted before the fall, and then start over with the annuals next spring. Maybe it’s for the best – the walkways and the gates need to be replaced, they’re 13 years old now and falling apart. So maybe not having a garden full of plants that are in the way, will allow that project to move forward. so I’m trying to put a bright side on the situation, but wow, just wow. Utter devastation.

And from now on, I’ll be throwing vole deterrent around the yard on a regular basis.

A never ending, self-inflicted purgatory

Every year a new weed tries to take over the walkway between the herb garden and the vegetable garden. Last year it was thistle, the year before it was Kochia and errant grass, this year it’s prickly lettuce, lambs quarters and shepherds purse.

For some reason this one area is heavily covered with lambs quarters. Luckily they pull out of the rock very easily, as there is a fabric underneath; but I can’t just spray them. The sprayed weeds will dry and then decompose into the bottom layer of the rock, building up a compost type soil over time that will grow more weeds, so pulling – for 2 hours.

I left the very tiny weeds, because they’re actually too small to pull. I can’t grab them with my gloves on and I’m not going to sacrifice my finger tips to this purgatory.

The S/E walkway was easier as it had larger weeds, and was much more sparse. I got that done in 1/2 hour, after spending 2 hours weeding the vegetable beds.

I think one more session of weeding this area, and this level of purgatory will be purged! (And then I can move on to another location.)

Bomb cyclone March 19, 2019

The “bomb cyclone” as it’s called, was Colorado’s strongest storm in recorded history. I ran around the yard and tried to reinforce the tie downs and landscape pins on any structure that isn’t concreted in place, by the time I was through, I was frozen too.

The picture doesn’t do it justice – the wind was blowing at 65 mph, horizontal, north to south, and whipping back towards the house, which faces east, piling up on the wall and front door. There was a little triangle from the door to the wall on the right that was clear of snow, completely untouched by the wind. We put down a pile of seed there, and in just a few minutes the porch was covered with birds eating and hunkering down against the wind; even a rabbit ventured up to steal some seed from the birds.

I have a great video that I took before the windows iced over, but Word Press platform won’t let me share it. (booo hisss). Within an hour the wind picked up even more and every window in the house was iced over, the cast iron patio furniture had been blown over and some of it actually thrown off the porch into the lawn, the tall skinny crimson oaks were whipping back and forth like a feather duster.

Meanwhile, my workaholic husband who insisted on going to work, called it a day and headed home around 11:30am. This was the scene on I70. They closed the highway about 15 minutes after this picture and literally turned all the cars around. It took Brian 3 hours to get home (usually a 45 minute trip). I asked Brian to check in every 30 minutes so I knew where he was and that he hadn’t ended up in a ditch with a large number of other vehicles that day!

Back at home, the Meanwhile inside, the cats had both run to their hiding places as the corners of the roof shook and creaked, the wind forcing it’s way up under the siding and slapping it against the house, little mini tornadoes whirling in from the bathroom ceiling vents – and something I’ve never seen before, the water in two of the toilet bowls was sloshing up and down the drain! So Weird. Like watching the water gurgle on a horror show and you’re thinking move away from the toilet you idiot! the swamp monster is going to eat your face!!!! This must be how it feels to be in a tornado right before your house blows apart!

After the storm: 3 foot drifts in the backyard and 5 foot drifts up against the north berm, street side. I didn’t loose any trees – thank the Gods! The ditches were totally full of snow making them look like part of the street – but no neighbors fell in this time!

Findings

Future project awaits! There are 52 breeze stones here, enough to make a nice sized wall 13′ long and 4 stones high, or for more privacy maybe a 7′ wide x 7′ tall screen? Ohhh the possibilities! $44. (The flagstone to the right was purchased last summer, and will be used for the labyrinth.)

These 5 pedestals are 30″ high, including the base piece. I got them for $25 each. I think I’m going to put large pots on them, but they could also lend themselves to being a bird bath or feeder, or pedestal for statuary. I’ll figure it out.

Peek-a-boo!

3/29/19

first year for the transplanted iris (white, pink and black)

Winter aconite. these were grouped around the base of the red dragon, but the bunnies dug under the dragon and threw the bulbs everywhere.

Tulip and orange daylilly on the berms. I have about 12 patches like this sprinkled all over the berms

Daffodils. there are 200 daffodils planted around the tree. I’ll be adding more this fall!

Iris at the edge of the noodle garden, with daffodils int he background

close up of the tulips and other spring bulbs in the noodle garden

the noodle garden. Mixed early bulbs in the front (tulips, grape hyacinth, purple glory of the snow and crocus). In the background around tree is a daffodil mix

Mother’s Wort and Cat mint, always first to pop up

Giant purple alium and dwarf stella de oro daylilly

Early Winter 2019

I love the look of snow on branches. These two pigeons are a mated pair; they’ve been hanging about in our garden for about 4 years now.

Below, the giant Fraxis growing in a pot. It will reach 12 feet tall one day.

Front Porch protective Cairn, buried under the snow

Of all the plantings in my garden, the hedges are one of my favorites. I feel like they’re one of my greatest successes, planted as 1/8″ diameter 18″ high twigs in 2007.

A magical winter wonderland

The wind blew so fierce and cold, at about -10 degrees, that the snow formed into icicles, and froze in place in the direction of the wind in that particular part of the garden.

Eastern Guardian – he doesn’t care – bring it on!

Low hanging fruit

2-5-2019: The orchard is almost always in need of one thing or another: fertilizer, weeding, oil spray, bird distraction, netting, picking, checking and/or treating for blight or other diseases, and pruning. Late winter is the time to prune.

Last year we had a bumper crop of fruit. It took me 2 solid months to get it all canned. But we left fruit on the top branches of the Big apple tree and the tallest pear tree. These are two of the original trees in the orchard that have made it through snap freezes, irrigation failures and rabbit feasting. They have both been pruned back once before, and then there was an attack of fire blight. After pruning out the blighted branches I left the trees to recover. That was 2016. Then they put on quite a bit of height and fruited in 2018. Time for another hard prune.

A hard prune on a fruit tree means it probably won’t yield fruit again for 2 – 3 years. It’s a sacrifice that needs to be made for the health of the tree, and to keep it from getting so tall that it can’t be fully harvested. I’m not willing to drag out a ladder any taller than 8 feet. So that means my trees can’t be taller than 12′. So, enough said – before and after pictures!

Pear tree, after pruning (no before pic)