Garden Notes for Late April-

The bleeding heart by the kitchen are getting an early start-


Progress is being made on the back wall. Here is a shot of the area behind the wall "before" (well, "before-ish", -the entire area was overgrown with Burning Bush & grape vines when we started, and in this shot half the berm they were growing on has already been excavated)-


A here's what we have today, with everything cleaned up and several clumps of tall (well, they will be later) perennials already moved over from the front of the wall-


The bee-balm has been moved from in front of the wall and looks happy-

Want some poison ivy? Have we got poison ivy. Here's an example which must be at least a decade old growing up a tree. If you see anything like this, don't touch the "hairs" on the vine (they're actually tendrils the vine uses to grasp the bark), because they've got irritating oil in them, just like the leaves-

Happy Happy-

I love bee balm and planted some in the day-lily bed behind the garage but it never thrived. Planted some last year in front f the stone wall 50 feet away but in partial shade, and this year it's five feet tall, and yesterday we saw two hummingbirds in it.

I guess it's happy.

Apologies to Audrey-

I really must apologize to my six or seven readers out there- days go by and the time I usually spend drinking, bitching or posting have been devoted to slogging through the mud and muck in the gardens for the past week or so. My only excuse is, boy does it feel good to go out and do a few hours work in the dirt each day. Being cooped up here in the office on beautiful spring days seems like being behind bars, as Audrey Tatou could tell you-




Here at Foggygates we are just beginning to get things under control. The first year here was devoted to unpacking and figuring out where the hell we were. Year 2 was devoted to starting to establish some gardens and whack back the weeds and woods (4 acres of it out back) and this, the third year, is the first year I really feel as if we are making headway.

Even Audrey would be impressed.

We hit two garden club sales this past Saturday, discovered a rare woods wildflower yesterday, and have plans to do four more sales this coming Saturday. I also created a new Victorian CroquetCue area where we can sip gin and tonics while waiting to take our turn whacking a wooden ball through a hoop, and am working on a fern garden for the front, and a wall garden for the back.

Next week we turn our attention to vegetables.

I have a few pictures to share in a day or so. I'm hoping that will make everybody, including Audrey, happy...