Tuesday, March 17, 2009
Happy St. Patrick's Day everyone. Weather is just warming up this week. Supposed to be 66 degrees today. I plan on tidying up my front garden today so that the crocus bulbs and hyacinths can bloom. Also plan on repotting and adding new soil to some of my indoor plants today.
As promised, I will post some more pictures of my shade gardens and ravine today. Hope you enjoy them.
The picture to the left shows my Oak Leaf Hydragena. The bark cracks and peels and adds winter interest to the garden. The small tree shrub starts with white conical blooms that turn shades of pink, then purple then brown. I usually let the blooms stay all winter for interest. I have had to cut the shrub back once in the seven years it has been in my garden. The next year it did not bloom. I have boxwoods in the form of hedges in front of the garage and in front of my front porch. Also have them flanking my garden arch. The Oak Leaf Hydragena gets full sun all day and really thrives. When you first plant them, they need water everyday for about a year to get established.
The picture above the first one is my "Forest Primeval Tree" Most of the tree is dead, really large in diameter (4 feet around), has all these dead cords from other plantlife running up the trunk and when the ravine greens up in the late Spring, this tree really is neat. It sits down in the ravine in front of my side compost pile. We have a Pilated Woodpecker (Woody the Woodpecker variety) that runs up and down the tree all year looking for insects. This bird is the largest woodpecker of its species. It has a large red head and black and white body. It is really loud and the neatest thing to observe. I have only seen one of these in the area where I live. Always wonder where its mate is. Later on this Spring, I will post another pic of the tree surrounded in green. Then you will understand why I named it my "Forest Primeval Tree".
The topmost picture is my back yard (or what there is of it) showing the stream with the sandstone base running through it. All the water from our section of Sagamore Hills drains into that stream and runs down to the Cuyahoga River. When we have a storm or hard rain, or when the winter snow melts, this stream can get up to 6-8 feet wide, 5-6 feet deep and it just rushes. The sound from inside our home is like you live beside a rushing river. It is awesome to see. A few years ago we had flooding and the main road into our street was washed out where the water rushes into our stream bed. We had an extremely large snapping turtle (2 feet long) wash up into our yard. With the help of my husband, a large bucket and a very large stick, we managed to put her back into the ravine. There are several small waterfalls all along the streambed, and with every major storm, the streambed kind of shifts and remakes itself. I feel blessed to have this as part of our property (all four acres of it).
Hoping you enjoyed my pics for today. See you all soon.
Posts
At least you aren't covered in snow. I hope to post a pic of my garden on thurs. It is still covered in snow. have my seeds though.
ReplyDeleteHow wonderful to see these pictures. I LOVE hydrangea, it might be my favorite of all and I lost one because I didn't water enough. I may try again this year. Happy Spring to you!
ReplyDelete