february bloom day - 2018

It's bloom day! Man, has it been a minute since I've done one of these!  Hi, everyone!!

The very first of my early daffodils are blooming, and I snapped this picture over the weekend. It's a sign that regardless of what the ground hog said, spring is coming.

This has not been a great winter for my hellebores, and I'm not exactly sure why.  They're not nearly as full as I expect them to be this time of year, but I am seeing some new growth.  I'll try and add some extra pictures of them this afternoon.  In the meantime, I'm going to scroll through the gardens of the world over at May Dreams Gardens!  

new plants 2017

2017 was a hot mess, wasn't it?  My focus wasn't really on my yard, other than trimming out some undergrowth to help the view of the pond. 

There are 3 new plants from this year that stick out in my mind

1) A new antique rose - Buff Beauty.  This is my second attempt at growing this rose.  I have some animal roaming around that thought the first one was pretty tasty.  I planted this rose in the spring, and by fall I had a couple good 4' canes - despite my lack of regular fertilizing.  I'm hoping it will continue to grow, and will bloom this year.

2) Three white Encore Azaelas by the pond.   This was definitely a discount find, and a pretty big risk.  Azaelas like sun - of which I have very little - and hate wet feet.  Planting them by the pond was not the smartest thing I've ever done, but I would love for them to grow, and be the first thing you see when you turn in my driveway.  I planted 3, and 1 survived and bloomed through fall.  I'm calling that enough of a win to consider building a retaining wall and trying again next year.

3) Magnolia cutting from my grandmother's house across the street.  In my quest to improve the view of the pond from my front porch, I'm also improving the view of my house from the road in the winter.  I like my privacy, so I'd like to add some more evergreens to this section of the woods.  Trees that I can 'limb up' over time and still see the pond, but will also provide screening from the road.  Well.  I looked at magnolias at our local nurseries, and let me just say they're crazy.  They have very nice trees, but there is no way that I'm paying $200 for a magnolia that won't even get very tall.  They grow wild here, so I took a rooted lower limb from one of my grandmother's trees, and put it into my holding bed.  If it survives the winter, I'll check its root situation, and see if it's ready move it into the woods. 

Here's to enjoying my yard more in 2018!

#pondproject - frozen

Just a little photo to document the freeze.  I'd say this is day 5 of the pond being frozen?  It got above freezing for a few hours, but otherwise, it has been in the teens and 20s.  I was out of town when the pond froze, but the water must have been very still, because it's almost like glass. The shallow end of the pond is frozen to the bottom, about a foot deep! 

Close up of the reflections of the trees in the ice.  This quite possibly will end up at the background on my phone.

I hate the cold, but at least it's pretty! 

#pondproject - bye bye bushes - unposted 2017 Draft

A blog post from 2012 came up on my memories today, which lead me to looking at my desolate blog, which lead me to thinking about posting at 2017 Garden Summary, or at least a picture, which lead me to this un-posted draft from last year.  I'm guessing it's from around this time last year, because it's been a LONG time since my blog has been on my mind.   Maybe you'll see me back here more in 2018, maybe you won't.  I do know I was more active in my yard when I was blogging, so I have that going for me.

Anywho, I hope anyone who see's this is doing well!

~Emily
It only took 5 months, but the my brush piles are gone! I started the pond project this year because here in Tennessee, we were going through what I thought was a bit of a drought, and the pond was down.  This meant I could drive my tahoe up to the bushes, wrap my brush puller around them, and pull them out without worrying about getting my car stuck. You can't do this every year, but the pond was low enough 4 years ago that we had done this before.  I didn't think twice about piling my brush in a giant pile by the driveway where it was safe to burn.

And then it didn't rain....for months.  We were under a Governor's Burn Ban for most of the fall due to the very real risk of wildfires.  There were weeks where the smoke settled in the Tennessee Valley.  The pond dropped to the lowest point anyone in my family can remember, and my grandmother is in her 90's!  So as the pond continued to go down, we continued to work, and we made another bush pile.

Finally, it rained enough to lift the burn ban, and we had a New Year's Eve, all day, bonfire!

I hate that everything is so grey right now, and the pond is still super low, but here are some before and after pictures of the bushes we cleared.  I'll take more pictures in the spring when the leaves are on the trees, but this is a start!

There is still more work to do around the pond, and in the woods, but the view from my porch has really improved.  I've just got to keep reminding myself that slow and steady wins the race!!