Wednesday Tour of Happy Acres

I’ve not taken you on a tour of our yard for awhile so I thought a midweek tour would be nice. I took these pictures on Sunday before all of the rain. It’s amazing how everything is growing!

If you are new to my blog, we moved to this house in 2007 and as the seasons rolled around I discovered that we had lots of irises. Many of my blog posts back then were keeping count of the 50 plus irises I found growing here.

Since that time, I’ve given up that ritual and some of the iris areas have been mowed down or I’m in the process getting rid of them – just don’t have time or the interest to keep them going. However, I did move some of the irises to several beds in the front yard. One of the beds near the garage has a large selection of mostly miniature and dwarf ones. So far seven have bloomed. Here are six of those. I used to know all of their names but have lost track. They still are beautiful even if I don’t know their names!

2014iris1 2014iris42014iris32014iris52014iris62014iris2I do still look forward to seeing them appear in the spring.

I worked a lot on cleanup of our asparagus patch last Fall so this Spring there was not as much work to do. This year I mulched the rows with shredded paper and the walkways with cardboard and straw.

asparagus bedI’m hoping I’ll have less weeding to do this year. For the last three days I have started harvesting a half pound each day. Looks like a good season and I see freezing asparagus again this year.

asparagus2014 The blueberries are doing great.

blueberries

One of our small cherry trees is also blooming.

cherry treeAnd this is the view outside my studio window. This is a Kwanzan Cherry tree.

cherrytreeoutwindow

One of the big things we started last Fall was having professionals come and landscape around the house. I’ve never lived at a house that needed a complete landscaping makeover until this one. The former owners planted bushes that should never have been planted around a house including Burning bushes that were planted in front of two windows. Every year I had to cut them down so we could see out. A couple beautiful Weigelas and a plum tree were also part of the front landscaping. They too were way too big, too much maintenance and too close to the foundation. They all had to go. One of their plantings, a Japanese Maple, even though they planted it too close to the house we wanted to keep it. We had talked with several landscapers years ago about moving it but the chances of survival would be so slim. With all of the large bushes, it couldn’t even be seen.

I always loved the front with the hostas, but because they were located in the sun, by the time July came around they looked pretty tired and burnt. They also were another project on my Spring list that needed to be mulched and then divided from time to time. Here is how the front looked last year.

Blooming hostas in front
Blooming hostas in front

Here is how the front looks now. You can see the Japanese Maple now!

front of houseI’ve never taken any pictures of this side of the garage. It had large holly and barberry bushes.  Now it’s so pretty with these azaleas.

side of garage

The back of the garage was another part of the landscaping I never posted pictures here. There is an old concrete step that we never knew what to do with. Our landscaper incorporated it into the design. Love it! Looks like we planned it that way.

newlandscaping1

We also got rid of our herb garden by the back door. Dave planted the herbs we use in other areas. Here is a picture from last year.

Clary Sage
Clary Sage

And now is how it looks.

herb garden areaOur goal was for lower maintenance. We’ll still have some work to do, but nothing like we did before.

Enough about landscaping. I thought you might like a sneak peak into Dave’s greenhouse. I don’t go in there, but often stop by and peek in and see what’s going on.

greenhouseAn area I’ve been working on this Spring is the west end of the shade area. This area has been neglected and I usually run out of steam before I get to it. This year I decided to work on it early. This is a dangerous area for me due to the poison ivy. We’ve really worked hard to rid our grounds of PI, but we still have it. Anyway, here is part of that area and I did get a little PI, but I think I’ll be okay.

shade areaIn addition to splitting and moving some plants, I also added a couple ferns to this area. The specific ferns are ones I use in my sun printing. Luckily for me they love our yard and spread pretty fast. I dug up several from another area and planted them here and on the other side of this tree. I want to make sure I have lots of ferns to play with!

That’s all for the tour today.  I’ve got more dyeing to share and please stay tuned for the Printed Fabric Bee giveaway. I’ll also be posting a tutorial of my piece for this month’s challenge.

As always, thanks for dropping by. Hope all is well in your neck of the woods.