Autumn Petals

When we bought our house in--oh wow this is becoming the far distant past--2009, the gardens were all very spring-bloom heavy. We had mostly azaleas, rhododendrons, and camellias. Oh and LOTS of "decorative liriope grass, of course." Over the years as we've replaced some dying plants and reshaped our flower beds, we've made a point of attemping to plant native pollinators and a three-season garden with lots of food for bees and bugs that make it to fall. When the azaleas, camellias, and our newly planted irises died, the coneflowers, black-eyed Susans, cardinal flowers, milkweed, and bee balm came out. We had made it through summer!

But fall still left a lot to be desired. We had some beautiful volunteer goldenrod that I've cultivated (cultivated as in "didn't cut down"). The bees were clearly happy about that.

Then this spring, in planning for fall, we bought a few varieties of aster that seem to be pretty happy so far! The hot pink ones in front are "vibrant dome" aster. The light purple ones behind are "October skies" aster. In the background, you can also see some unevenly growing mums (they never seem to take off--I think it's too shady there for them). It's so nice to have some color in our fall garden, finally.

It wouldn't be a fall post if we didn't take a quick tour of some of our fall foliage, specifically with our newer trees. After bunnies nibbled a willow oak we'd planted in this very spot in the front yard two years ago, last year (May 2022), I planted this northern red oak, which was already starting out much bigger than our free 6'' willow oak. Based on the description here, it sounded hearty with good odds of survival (I feel like our tree survival rate is about 50%). It was a little floppy so you can see here that a bamboo stake is holding it up--the actual trunk is still just a skinny stick. But even young, this tree seems to be willing to put on a fall show. Here's the tree in early October:

And here it is two days ago. It's like someone flipped a switch and the tree decided it was officially time.

It would be so great to get a big shady oak tree in the front yard, if this fellow survives. It claims to be fast-growing, but I'm not convinced yet. Or at least it doesn't compare to the willow I wrote about in my last post.

Finally, we have an October Glory maple in our back yard, a replacement for the one that the deer got to in 2018. Planted in 2021 at the same time as the sycamore, dogwoods, and the willow, it seems to be doing ok so far, moving from this:

To this:

We were a little worried about its health for a few reasons. First, deer seemed to be nibbling all its lower branches (but, fortunately, aren't rutting its trunk, which we wrapped in chickenwire). Second, this spring we dug it up from its original location and relocated it about a dozen feet away. That always stresses a tree out. This picture, taken in June, shows where the tree is now, closer to the back of our lot. It used to be between the sad magnolia and the house.

Why did we relocated our maple? Well, here's the big news for those that made it to the bottom of the post. We're in the planning stages for the biggest project we've yet taken on: a new addition that will expand the house into the back yard! Now that I've more or less caught you up on the state of the yard, I'll write a series of posts bringing you up-to-date on a completely new addition that will expand our footprint all the way to the magnolia. We're so excited!

Giant Willow

I'm so excited to come inside and tell you some big plans we have for the house, but I feel like I can't leave the yard yet until I document a few more details there. It has been pretty uninspiring, but bear with me. So in on our back rock garden, things have progressed beautifully  this year. All the things planted there appear to be happy and growing. After the landscaping crew installed all of the things in the linked post, we made a few changes, adding some cardinal flowers and, most notably, planting a fast-growing willow hybrid in place of one of the red chokeberries, to provide some privacy from the parking lot in the back:

They were not kidding when they said it was fast growing...here is a picture of it in March 2022, right when we planted it:

Here it is again in June 2022, three months later:

Fast forward to August of this year, and it has long surpassed the shed height and is giving the trees a run for their money:

I feel like if we watch this tree for a few hours, we would *see* it growing...

I mentioned the cardinal flowers, so I can't get away without showing a picture of them--here they are with the rest of corner, looking all pink and pretty:

And a close-up, because they are so lovely. More important, the pollinating bugs love to hang out on them:

A short distance from the rain garden, next to the shed, another garden is blooming. First--a blast from the past, when D. put pavers around the edge of the shed to give it a bit more protection from splashing mud and just to make it look nice (you can see this picture is from before we had the rock garden):

Then this spring, after we'd taken down the vegetable garden and returned it to grass, oldest kid asked "can I have a garden?" So we made her a little one, cautioning her not to bother with veggies because, as we'd all learned, lots of animals will eat them unless they're well protected. So she opted for flowers. D dug up a portion of the grass next to the shed ramp, put in some brick edging, and added some soil. The rest was all child labor. Lots of annuals and a few perennials planted, and even regular watering:

It started filling in and looking great:

Here it is in early fall, with some very happy zinnias and a new iron border as well to help frame it. We definitely plan to pair it with another small plot on the other side next spring:

We still have a quick fall plant recap to go and then we move indoors for a while!