Mystery Plant Monday

Today's post is an update on all things in the garden, although I do have a mystery or two to solve there as well. I can hardly believe that these are my hydrangeas. Love this plant! I have two varieties: the top is a vibrant violet purple, the bottom is a beautiful sky blue with creme centers. Nature is amazing for sure!

 Now for the rest of the garden tour . . .

Snapshot Sat-er Monday!

Happy belated Saturday! The weather is fine and our schedules are opening up a bit more, so we'll be back (again) to weekly posting pronto.

Here's a view from the barn up the hill to the pasture. There's no way our walking lawnmower could even dent the mass of foliage up there. Right now, it's waiting for a riding lawnmower but until that happens it looks like something out of a Miyazaki movie!

View from the barn down towards the house. The fenced structure in the bottom left is the new dog kennel. The green house and raised veggie garden are off screen to the right. 

The other side, you can't quite make it out on this image but there's fencing in the woods in the top left. The wood frames in the center are the remains of the previous tenants' grape vines. It's so totally overgrown and rotted that you can't get access to anything. Sounds like a future project to me!

This guy has been lurking around the property, I want to clean and paint him eventually as decoration for my apartment, but I can't decide on a design.  The spiky plant of pain to the right is one of the prolific raspberries that torments- I mean resides on the property. They are everywhere!!

 We have so many ferns in the recesses of our property that some areas seem like it's Jurassic!

Where's Jeff Goldblum when you need him? 

 We currently have mountain strawberries, wild raspberries and wild blackberries blooming around the property. We will even have some blueberries, as the barrels mum planted last year have finally matured!

A better view of the dog kennel (complete with dog house and dog deck!) as well as the garden shed.

I spy with my big hetero-chromatic eyes... a tiny bench and a summer project! The house is set up with little sprinkling systems, but there's a fault in the line somewhere so they just make a mess. Mum plans on fixing them, but wants to do some research first. 

Big bowl o' chives! It needs to be split and r-epotted, but in the meantime it smells divine!

Everything is in bloom now- these rhododendrons are especially volumous outside the game room window

Close up of a blossom- so pretty!

We hired a survey company to reassess the far edge of the property last week. Our neighbor made a bunch of assumptions about the line between our properties and ended up damaging the treehouse in his attempt to "reclaim it." All is well now, but we opened up a dialog and got a legit survey crew out ASAP. We asked them to make really obvious markers of where our property ends and at this point we have to take their word for it, because their hefty 2x4 in cement markers are completely obscured by brush! One is so far down by the water, we couldn't find them even after some exploring. Up in the hinterlands of Jurassic river access, I found some really interesting remains. Completely clean, the head shape is to angular to be feline but much too large to be any rodentia we have seen around. Maybe weasel? Will research and let you know!

Snapshot Saturday

Took a minor homework break to enjoy the sunshine (90 degrees, say what now?!) and the new blooms!

What you see above is the view from the master bedroom balcony. Mum found some gorgeous cling-art mimicking stained glass at Home Depot and it works perfectly to add a little privacy to what otherwise would be a straight shot view of the bathroom. When the sun hits it just right, it just glows.

We joke about mom retiring to the "cave" to work on her National Boards, but really it has a gorgeous view!

The bleeding hearts bloomed all at once, I didn't even know we had them! But mum assures me they were planted last season, she just wasn't certain the chickens had left them alone enough to bloom.

the Sailor was able to sneak home last weekend and with the weather so good, cleared some trees. The section to the left just needs the stumps removed before it begins its new life as an herb garden.

The photos are a little blurry, but on her way back from Port Townsend Mum stopped by this nursery- Far Reaches Farm - and picked up a few new chicken approved additions to the garden.

The white flowers are the first bloom of a Rhododendron who endured a hard-core pruning, cutting back 12 years of growth to basically the ground. It was mostly trunk with little green, now reversed!
In front of it are Iris bulbs and yet more alpine strawberries (they're everywhere!!)

Ganymede taste tested the new delphiniums and opted to leave them alone. Thank goodness.
Behind the delphiniums is a new project- bishop's weed! Yeah, that's got to go...

Last year, Peter Rabbit and his hungry cohorts decimated mum's "spilled milk" flower arrangement.
This year even the chickens are leaving the sweet allysum (Lobularia maritima) alone!
The lone purple stems are a new addition to the mystery plant pile- the label's washed off!
Irises on the far right, Peonies and Purple Vinca round out the rest of the bed.

Pieris Japonica- has been blooming for several weeks now and the chickens love to siesta beneath it.

Japanese Red Maple and a Rhododendron, this one blooms pink but the petals fade to white. 

And yet more alpine strawberries!

 Another rhododendron- but you can see a snippet of the dog kennel and the garden shed!

Another view of the Japanese Red Maple and Rhododendron- the structure to the left is the bbq hut. Beyond those trees is the river!

A better view of the green house and raised garden bed- and our deathstar! It's a rolly-compost ball :)

The ladies insisted on following me around as I did my little photoshoot-  the Easter Egger is Circe, the Cochin is Artemis, and the golden-laced Wyandotte is probably Tequila  but the 'Twits are hard to tell apart.

I leave you now with the view of my homework chair- I've got two six page essays to write and two presentations to prep for, but at least I can't complain about the view!