Landscaping the front of the farm has been the lowest priority for the last few years. This year I was determined to make it, not into a showpiece, but at least neat and pretty. Showpiece will have to wait a year or two until new plants mature! Saturday we picked up two loads of mulch. The truck will hold a yard of mulch at a go, so we have two yards, plus the bags I’d bought the other day. Unfortunately, the cedar mulch I bought is blonde, and the bark mulch yesterday is a brunette. I’m trying to blend it. I’m using broken bricks for edging, because we have a bunch from a project Dad started and then gave up on. And lots of little annuals going in the edges of beds, so it will be colorful later. I’ll take more pictures then!
I like to practice edible landscaping, and most of my flower beds have more than decorative plants in them. Also, as they are the first zone around the house, and thus the easiest to care for and harvest from, I will put herbs and veggies in them until my kitchen garden is ready to plant. The bed in the above photograph has mint and thyme in it already. The wild strawberries decided they like it, and when they started to come up I’ve left them alone, hoping for berries this year. At the upper part of the bed you will see a bright blue barrel, one of the rain barrels. It saves steps on watering both this bed, and the chicks who are being brooded in the garage.
I’m still only halfway around the drive, I still want to mulch cover the crescent bed in the center. The big Bradford Pear is there, and a volunteer Butternut we’ve decided to let grow there. I planted 7 bayberries there this spring, as they are resistant to road salt. Dad lined the road edge a few years back with a short rock wall, and arbor vitae. Hopefully they will get big enough in years to come to shield the house from the road to some extent. The bed is still a work in progress. There is a well established patch of comfrey and I’ve put some daylilies in, as well as my mother’s day snowball bush. But the raspberries have taken over. Our wild raspberries are almost useless, as they are prone to a virus that prevents them from setting fruit.
Comments
3 responses to “Making the Farm Beautiful”
It’s looking good, Cedar! You’ve been busy!
I posted a comment a few weeks ago, then it disappeared! Nothing bad in it, I promise. I do admire you for all the work and thought and planning you are putting into things there. Wish I could grow plants as well here.
Great info. I envy you for having a beautiful garden. I want to have garden like this.