Spring Plantings

Since going to California for a little spring break, spring has finally arrived in Ohio. For us, that means lots of yard work planting, mowing, mulching, burning, pruning, etc. This time last year our yard was mostly dirt. It has come a long way since then, but we are ambitious amateur landscapers so the work continues. 

Today, we mulched the kitchen herb garden and front flower bed. We plant the herbs in the front of the house because that is closest to the kitchen. Two rosemary and one oregano plant made it through the winter and Sam added some tarragon, more oregano, thyme, lemon verbena, and pineapple sage. He plans to add basil in a week or so now that we are frost free (cross fingers). 

Sam bought me lots of annuals to fill in between the perennials in the front flower bed. All of the perennials we planted last year came back. It was a Mama-Llama-You-Came-Back kind of moment for me. Our house faces north so everything seemed to be delayed 2-3 weeks in returning. Even my daffodils are late bloomers (although the crocus weren't). Anyway, the front of the house looks much more polished now that the hanging pots are up and beds are mulched. Next year we'll have to buy mulch in bulk. I fit 10 x 2 cuft bags in my car, but that is pretty much the limit. The 20 cu ft only covered what's in the pictures and 1.5 trees in the back. 

 Sam ordered river pebble last year for general landscaping. We've used it lots of places to aid drainage and add visual interest. We even covered a large portion beneath our deck with rocks. Well, there's still a lot of rocks left and they are sitting our front yard. We filled in between our raised beds today with rocks since that area will get pretty trampled and be hard to mow, but we still have more rocks! And they need to be moved so we can plant two pretty crabapples there! Sam is working hard to move the rock pile into our lovely drainage ditch between our property and our neighbors. Inga is not so sure she likes us moving her mountain of rocks.

Sam has also cleared a large section of our backyard that was originally briars and weeds. He cleared it by starting a brush fire a few weeks ago and then went in to take out the briar stumps and such. Now we have the beginnings of more lawn. In the process, we discovered we have a couple walnut trees and several white crabapples back there. We are trying to clear out the vines that are covering the trees.

Here's all the trees we have including the biggest walnut in the middle of the picture (the tree with two trunks). Around the walnut tree (big twee!) is Inga's flower garden. She picked out several seed packets at the store and helped plant them all.

Inga also helped me plant the baby twee we got at an Arbor Day festival. It's a white flowering dogwood. Right now the tree consists of a tiny stick about one foot tall, but hopefully the tree survives to maturity.

And, now, I am off to finish planting the second raised bed and my small flower pots. It also looks like tonight's menu will include a fresh spinach salad. Yum!