While walking around the far end of the old garden area, I found these little splashes of colour.
Such tiny little wildflowers! They were all over an area that is to dry, hardly anything grows there, and what little does manage to grow there, stays small. It’s nice to see what manages to survive there!
Of course, we must have a kitten picture, too!
An increasingly rare moment, when they’re all quiet instead of running, jumping, wrestling and playing around their nest. :-D
The Re-Farmer
It was lovely doing my rounds with morning, and I just wanted to share some of my flowering finds. :-)
One of my mother’s fancy lilacs is now blooming. Last year, while cleaning up this flower bed, I took out a maple tree that was growing in the middle of it!
At its base, where I had pruned and cleared quite a bit, there is now massive new growth of this lilac.
Swallowtails love lilacs, we’ve noticed. :-) I wasn’t able to get a picture of one this morning, though.
The first couple of my mother’s poppies opened this morning. This one is near the lilac bush in the above picture. The large leaves you see to the left is a small cherry tree. Small enough that I hope to transplant it to a better location, by next year.
Another poppy that opened up this morning is under the bird bath.
We’re going to have lots of these blooming, this year!
I tried making my way through an area of the spruce grove this morning, but there were too many fallen trees and undergrowth blocking my way. The wild roses scattered throughout, however, were blooming enthusiastically in the mess. It should be interesting to see how they do after the area is cleaned up, and they have more light and space. :-)
This is one of the plants I’ve been seeing growing all over the places where I had pruned branches and cleared away deadwood. This one is near the south fence of the spruce grove, where I’d managed to do some clearing before the snow fell, last year. This is the first of the flowers I’m seeing from this plant. I don’t know the name of it, but we’re going to have quite a lot of these, all over the place! :-)
I also did a bit of patriotic decorating today.
Canada Day will be here soon, so I set up four sturdy little flags that we have, on the East fence line, facing the road.
Kinda wishing I had more! I love how they look. :-)
The Re-Farmer
Some wildflowers in the native plant garden we visited a few days ago.
Such cheery flowers!
The Re-Farmer
When we moved out here to take care of the farm for my mother, one of the things we knew is that this first year would be a year of discovery. With the yard in particular, I wanted to get an idea of what was growing where. Sure, my mother could fill in a few details, but she hasn’t lived here in a few years, and isn’t going to remember everything.
As summer progresses, and things come to bloom in their seasons, I am making more and more of these discoveries.
This is at the base of one of the dead spruce trees I’d pulled a whole triffid of vines out of, not long ago. When I was going around here with the weed trimmer, I avoided this area, partly because I could tell it wasn’t just a whole lot of overgrown crab grass and weeds, partly because I wasn’t sure what was hidden in it. I’m glad I left it. :-)
The main garden area is completely overgrown right now, much to my mother’s dismay, but I did try to explain to her that I wanted to see what was there.
In the middle of some tall grass and burdock that I’d pulled, there is this splash of colour. There is another next to it that’s more white than pink. Just the two of them, in a sea of grass!
I will see about transplanting these somewhere, to salvage them, later on.
There were a couple of areas with a lot of thistles that I pulled when they were larger (easier to pull), but I didn’t get all of them. There is another type of thistle, with fewer but larger leaves and spines, that grows much larger flower heads.
The bees and butterflies love them.
There’s only a couple of these big thistles. I will leave them for the insects and pull them out just before they go to seed.
There were many more random flowers and raspberries (I picked almost 2 cups of raspberries while taking these photos – far more than I expected to get out of them!) growing in between the trees in the maple grove, including in areas where I’d already used the weed trimmer.
The girls and I have been talking about what we’d like to do, and it turned out we’re all on the same page. When things are cleaned and cleared out, we want to plant, in some areas, a variety of wildflowers and bulbs that will naturally spread. The rows of trees are not the same distance apart, so I’m thinking of keeping the widest area clear, and planting between the rows that are closer together. If we’re careful about what we select, we can encourage them in these areas to not only make it look pretty, but to reduce maintenance. No grass to mow or weeds to trim. We’ll just have to make sure there is plenty of grassy areas, too (or maybe moss) to walk in. Plus, I’d like my husband to be able to enjoy the space, too, and not have to worry about getting stung, since he’s allergic to stings.
Finding that balance, and thinking years into the future, will be the key in deciding what we do. We don’t want to be in the same situation, years down the road, that we are in now with the spirea and the vines!
Until then, we’ll just enjoy the blooms as we find them!
The Re-Farmer
The Re-Farmer 