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!
I 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.
I’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.
The blueberries are doing great.
One of our small cherry trees is also blooming.
And this is the view outside my studio window. This is a Kwanzan Cherry tree.
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.
Here is how the front looks now. You can see the Japanese Maple now!
I’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.
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.
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.
And now is how it looks.
Our 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.
An 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.
In 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.
It looks lovely, Lynda! I wish i lived closer… I would help you thin your iris… I love them, but have not had much luck here, probably due to my neglect. I am inspired to think about having a landscaper come in to help me lay out the area around the house better… maybe a good project soon!
Judy, Thanks. I do love the irises and I’ve not had trouble growing them, but they are high maintenance since they don’t like mulch and keeping up with the weeding even with Preen, is just too much work. In the past I’ve split them and given them away and also gave them to the Master Gardener sale when I was a member. I’m moved most of the neat ones up front so I still have some of them. Hiring a landscaper was so well worth the cost especially since the bushes were so huge and so many of them. It will really cut down on my work giving me more time for those areas I really love like the sun and shade gardens. In fact, I’m off to finish mulching that area this morning. As far as growing irises which I’m sure you know is that they need sun (I tried growing them at my last house with no sun!) and the top of their rhizomes are above ground and they are planted about 12 inches apart to give them area to grow.
I love the dwarf irises, and the landscaping looks terrific! I have so much work to do in my gardens, but I can’t get started until we get rid of this cold, weather up here in New England. Love your blog!
Janice recently posted..Hopping into Spring
Janice, Thanks! I know what you mean. So much to do. Fortunately for us I believe the cold weather is behind us although it’s a bit nippy outside today. I just came in from weeding and mulching to take a break. The sun is so nice today I really need to do some more sun printing! Thanks for following me. Hope the warmer weather gets there soon.
Lynda,
I love to see what is bloom back in Indiana!
Hi Joan, I don’t think I ever told you but we planted currants after seeing yours on the Garden Walk. They’ve been planted for a couple years and looks like we might get some this year. Yeah! So much has bloomed since I took those pics Sunday. The hostas and ferns are all coming out. So much fun to watch them. But then things are always growing where you are!! Thanks for dropping by.
Everything looks so nice and manicured. As I looked through the photos, I wondered why you got rid of things like the herb garden and some other things. But I understand as I think back to all of my work that I make for myself! I’m not too sure I’ll be able to maintain all I’ve got – and I’m still planting more!!, so someday I may end up doing the same.
Oh that 2nd iris with the purple and pink is to die for! I’ve never seen that color combo, it’s just gorgeous!!
Jaime Haney recently posted..Happy Birthday to Me!
It looks like a lovely place to live and relax.
Dolly, Thanks.
Jaime, We hated to get rid of the herb garden but it was such a mess. We still grow the herbs but they are not in that area. We decided that we had to get rid of some things so we could have time to work on what we really love. I love my sun and shade area, the asparagus patch, black and blue berries and my three beds in the front. I spent so much time maintaining around the house the plants that should never have been planted. I also still have the iris bed in the back and the slope garden which I’ll be phasing out. And I also want to spend time on my art. We’re getting older and we decided we couldn’t keep this all going or want to do all this. However, 7 years ago we had all kinds of plans for gardens. I even mapped out a labyrinth but quit after getting my worst case of poison ivy ever! I know what you mean about wanting to do so much and planting more, but it finally hit us that we can’t do it all even though we want to!