WiseAcre Gardens

The front yard still looks a little bleak to me. There used to be two maple trees that more than filled up the space of the island bed. There’s more planting planned and I think the stone edge needs to be extended.

A bit of work still unfinished.

The front entrance bed is mainly a sedum – Iris garden with some brown-eyed susans thrown in for some later color. I chose to use Sedum here to keep the main planting low to keep the walkway and front of the house open. The iris in the bed are ‘minature’ and the ‘little bush’ is a Sedum – ?, it’s similar in form to Autumn Joy but the leaves are variegated green and yellow/cream. The big shrub to the left is a well established azalea and all that remains of the too high shrubs that used to grow along the front entrance.

Around the garage side the moist clay and shade were ideal for Astilbe. I never miss a chance to plant them. Astilbe are one of my top favorite perennials. They do need some direct sun and the soil should remain moist.

Once past the end of the garage there’s plenty of light. Ajuga emerges from the shady area under the hydranga. More sedum and iris grow at the edge of the bed among the rocks. Coreopsis ‘Zagreb” leads into phlox which in turn leads into Hydranga “Limelight’. Behind them all and growing along the deck is a perennial sunflower, the name long forgotten.

Looking to the back of the property line there is another island bed. Again more rock, Sedum and Iris replacing a dead tree.

I skipped showing the side bed but you can catch a glimpse of it while looking at the back of the house.

The long view along the back property line. I normally don’t add little bumps and curves for no good reason to garden borders but sometimes going straight too long gets boring.

It’s always nice being able to blame some idiot for dropping something in the way. This rock was meant to be set back farther but once it hit the ground it got stuck. Weighing in at over 1400 lbs the boulder was at the limit of my weight class and I was tired of wrestling it.

Large stone slabs lead from the deck to the gazebo.

The sun and shade was too much for my camera. This is what the stone slab steps looked like today.

The camera does better on an overcast day.

Of course a good garden takes a lot of TLC. Betty and her Donkey have certainly taken good care of ‘my’ garden. I consider this one of Canton’s top 10 gardens. Now that I’ve said that, I need to come up with 9 more.

My pond garden gets a spring clean up. Finally.

Note the tree stump in the upper left hand corner – The Maple tree that is no more used to provide shade for my Ligularia and Jewelweed. I think the Ligularia will handle the extra sun but the Jewelweed is going to suffer. Not that that’s a bad thing – the Jewelweed sprouts everywhere and a little help controlling it is appreciated. Yea right – I’ve planted some Yellow Jewelweed seed I collected last year.

I want to do more of this. I just love a stone wall emerging from water. The Sweet Woodruff growing out of the cracks only ads to the charm.

Stone bridge over the drainage ‘ditch’ along the driveway. All part of the plan to get the vegetable garden dry before the end of may. The crushed stone dry stream is also part of the ‘easy maintenance’ pond overflow.

There’s a dam at the end of the pond I lower to drain and flush the pond. One reason to drain the pond in the winter is to keep frogs from trying to overwinter in it. The pond is way too shallow (only a few inches deep) so before they start to think about burrowing in I drain the pond, forcing them to seek better shelter elsewhere. They don’t have far to go though, my plot is surrounded by swamp.

A look at another bridge in the ‘construction’ area. Where the hand dolly is laying was flooded not that long ago. The spring melt usually fills the area about 8 inches deep. I haven’t decided if I want to make it a permanent pond or put in a drainage pipe to carry the water away.

The wall will get done sooner or later. It’s just that I suffer from Shoemaker’s Syndrome. I probably would never have started but I came across some stone that I wasn’t going to let anybody else have.

I call this Bubble Rock. It has to be the only pieces of stone like this around. How it formed is a mystery to me but it’s mine, mine, mine. All mine. Those Jewelweed seedlings in the crack are mine too but they’ve got to go.

I guess the best way to describe it is it looks like half filled water balloons that hardened into multicolored stone. The sandstone quarry had never seen anything like it before and probably never will again. There were only a few pieces and I took them all. They just begged to be in a water feature and I couldn’t say no to them.

The hamlet of Morley, NY saw heavy traffic yesterday. At least one local resident overheard himself discribe the traffic as crappy. It appeared that a single Deere was responsible for the shitty road conditions found a little way down the road.

On one of the busiest travel days of the year the air was filled with the sound of honking. Thousands of travelers took to the air to head south.

Leaving the traffic behind I went looking for Green Gift ideas but by this time of year the selection is pretty slim. The first real green item I stumbled upon was fencing. Handmade of 100% eastern White Cedar this fencing will last for decades without any maintance but it takes special care to get the green look.

One item that dates back long before electric shavers was shelved in great supply but none seemed to be moving. Once used to strop razors these Birch Brackets are now left to produce a green apple smell while decomposing dead Birch trees.

Birch polypore, Piptoporus betulinus are leathery unlike the more common woody conks that grow on dead trees. Strips cut from them are used as a strop for razors. The annual fruiting bodies emerge in the spring and summer from wood that is extensivly decayed.

Looking up the tree trunk gives one a different perspective.

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