So it begins...

I'm not a great believer in New Year's resolutions--I believe in making resolutions and setting goals, I just don't think that they should be made at the beginning of the calendar year. However, if I had made a New Year's resolution, it would have been to blog more. It makes sense: I read blogs, I enjoy blogs, I occasionally have things to talk about or share and I do like the ability to go back and see what I was doing a year or so ago. Still, blogging doesn't come easily to me. I second guess myself, I edit myself, I don't make the time to do it, in other words I share all of the common symptoms of non-bloggers.

Well, I've decided to give it another go. I am making this new beginning with a new (to me) tool and a more general format in mind. The idea is to talk about the house, the garden, the sort of bread recipes I am experimenting with at the moment and so on. There have been a ton of things I could have blogged about over the last 5 years (since we moved to this house), had I but taken the time. Fortunately, I have pictures of most of them, so I can (and will) go back and talk about them now.

For today, I am just going to post a few pictures of the garden as it is today, just a little something to limber up and learn about Blogger with. Enjoy and let me know if you like it!

This is the main perennial bed, which is to the front right of the house (out of the frame on the left). I the back, you can just see the garden shed/workshop. Not much is blooming yet, of course, a few Columbines are being very busy and the Dogwoods are in full bloom, too.








Same bed in the foreground, but from a different angle. The garden shed and herb garden, as well as the swing set (inherited from the PO) can be seen. The open, grassy area is the drain field for the house. It is a nice, large open area, bordered by a hardwood forest. Eventually, I want to work my way around this circle, turning the area between the woods and the lawn into mixed borders. I've made to the left post of the swing set so far and am going to prep another section for fall planting over the course of the summer.



A close up of the herb garden and perennial bed that I installed last spring in the leftover fill dirt we used to level out the site for the garden shed. I used all of the rocks I've dug up over the last few years, to edge the slope of this elevated bed. Over time, I will still have to fill the area in between the rocks with gravel, for now, I've just planted some sedums and some other rock garden plants. Babysteps.





Looking over the herb garden back to the house. The goal is to eventually fill the walk area (currently just local clay) with gravel. The large pot in the middle is the mint container. I have to replant some of the mints that have lost the battle last year. The Korean Mint and the Spearmint are the clear winners. My Lemonbalm disappeared entirely, but I have others (happily reseeded in years past) that I can transplant. The obelisk supports a Clematis that is (somewhat) protected from the mint invasion by a deep bottomless pot that surrounds it.


The Clematis is a "Miss Bateman", if I am not mistaken and is the first one blooming so far. Speaking of not being sure, I have been less than great labeling my plantings, so I am sometimes a little fuzzy on the cultivars in any given spot. This year, I have finally started to install some more sturdy labels, so hopefully I will do better in the future.






How do you label your plants?