johnnycake's garden pics as promised

[johnnycakes]

Okay , here's my first attempt at posting pictures. Without the help of my wife it would have been impossible/very difficult for me.
Be sure to look for the baby woodchuck picture and the chipmunk drinking at the water garden.
At the water garden the purple flowers are spiderwort and the yellow flowers are primrose.
In the beat up herb garden (due for reconstruction) are chives in bloom.
The large flowers on the bushes are rhododendron some pink, some red.
There are a couple of pics of shrubs with with red Wigelia and a single Sweet William stalk with red flowers.
The birds eating the suet (beef fat) are a mother flicker and the baby is sliding down into the corner of the bird feeder bracket.
You can just ask about any of the others .

I hope this all works.. I hope you enjoy the pics

[johnnycakes]

Re: johnnycake's garden pics as promised pt#2

[Pepper]

Re: johnnycake's garden pics as promised pt#2



Fantastic. Great photos, lovely flowers, birds and other animals.

I wish I had a green thumb.

[johnnycakes]

Re: johnnycake's garden pics as promised pt#2

Here's the last of them. Had some trouble with the pics not taking. probably too much for one post

[SandiF]

Re: johnnycake's garden pics as promised pt#2

absolutely beautiful!

i've not had much luck with spiderwort... planted a few years ago and they've not done well. don't even think they came out this spring. is a woodchuck a different critter from the groundhog? the variegated tree looks like one I have but mine is smaller..planted a few years ago. I had no idea it'll grow to that height.

so who is the greenthumb in the jcakes household? your garden is lovely and has a rustic feel to it. love it!

[Tulip]

Re: johnnycake's garden pics as promised

The pics are lovely. Most definitely niceness.

[Nanook]

Re: johnnycake's garden pics as promised pt#2

Nice job on the landscaping. Beautiful, all of it. Heaven on earth. Nice yard and digs, JC. I was hoping you would come back and post the pics. Thanks!

[kia027]

Re: johnnycake's garden pics as promised pt#2

Lovely garden
I especially like your water feature

[Peasie]

Re: johnnycake's garden pics as promised pt#2

Beautiful woodsy landscaping

I especially love this photo of the chives

Are the wire sheaths around the trees to protect them from the woodchucks? Beavers?

[johnnycakes]

Re: johnnycake's garden pics as promised pt#2

SandiF<

I do about 95% of the gardening and all the grunt work.The house at one time was deep in pine woods that over the years have been cut back so there can be sunny gardens. The old herb garden is just a mess and the ground hogs have eaten the perennial lettuce . There still isn't enough time in the days to do everything I'd like to do.

Variegated tree? I'll have to check the pics but I know there is a Dogwood in blossom behind the big rock in the driveway that might be it. If it isn't I'll get back to you after I post this and check the pictures. Some big pine and oak in the yard are 75 feet tall or better.

The spiderwort likes shady areas with enough water which I think is a trait of the many different worts. You might be lacking one thing or the other. Mine is sprouting in pathways and between the bricks in the walkway and those have to be pulled out.

They are in 5-6 places in the yard and spreading like weeds.
Pretty purple flowered weeds.

Lastly a woodchuck is a groundhog is a woodchuck.
The Joy of Cooking has a recipe for groundhog/woodchuck which lately is beginning to sound absolutely delicious as the woodchucks eat up the garden.

I don't kill things and so will probably wind up trapping and moving them to a state park.

Rustic? We're suburban but on three acres of mostly woods and bush bordered on both sides by protected wet areas about 100 feet across. at most. Birds do wake us up at daybreak (groan).
Thanks for the compliment

[johnnycakes]

Re: johnnycake's garden pics as promised

Thank you Tulip

[johnnycakes]

Re: johnnycake's garden pics as promised pt#2

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Nanook</div><div class="ubbcode-body"> Nice job on the landscaping. Beautiful, all of it. Heaven on earth. Nice yard and digs, JC. I was hoping you would come back and post the pics. Thanks! </div></div>

Thanks S,

I'd like to do another 5 miles or perhaps twice five miles with walls and towers girdled round...that (would sit) athwart a cedarn cover.......and gardens bright with sinuous rills to coin a phrase or two.

I'd like a crew of about a hundred landscapers and water gardeners and just keep going off into the horizon.

This could be an even much prettier planet.

[johnnycakes]

Re: johnnycake's garden pics as promised pt#2

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Kia</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Lovely garden
I especially like your water feature </div></div>

Thank you Ia,


I built the two-tiered water garden with the top tier on top of a huge pine tree stump using 2x12 framing and rubber roof (scraps from big jobs) cemented together. All the rocks are from the yard . New England was scoured of all the good soil by the glaciers of the last ice age and left with soil in which rocks &quot; percolate&quot; rise in the soil and you wind up yanking them out and building things like rock gardens , rustic walls and rock gardens . I have all three . Some are the size of a small automobile.

I havent't used any concrete on the water garden but someday will get the rocks all the way I want them and when It can't get any better, I'll cement everything in place.
It's all shaded by the Redbud tree so the rocks which are out of water get algae, moss and lichen growing in the damp environment. Chipmunks live in holes under the water garden and frequently can be seen standing on the tallest point; the rock the bamboo water spout goes through.

No volunteer frogs in the water garden so far this year except for one the size of my fist who disappeared after a week or so. Last year the garter snakes ate up the five or so small frogs who took up residence in the water garden and I did see one snake late this spring sunning in the herb garden who was about two.feet long and &quot;stocky&quot;. He/she is definitely a suspect in that disappearance.

Unless you live in a condo you might want to consider building a water garden.
They're nice to look at in the daytime. actually better than nice. With the sight and sound of the running water (sound really nice at night) and the colors of the flowers and greenery and the differing textures of the rocks.
It does take some planning and hard work.
Rocks I discovered, are deceptively heavy, Something the size of a watermelon weighs many, many times more than does that watermelon. Several big rocks in the garden had to be rolled into place with a big steel bar.

Because of all the heavy lifting it's better for several people to be in on the building of something this size or larger.

That said, one especially virile, strong, handsome man who also happens to be a brilliant landscape designer with all the humility in the world could certainly throw that all together all by his (magnificent) self.

[johnnycakes]

Re: johnnycake's garden pics as promised pt#2

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Peasie</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Beautiful woodsy landscaping

I especially love this photo of the chives

Are the wire sheaths around the trees to protect them from the woodchucks? Beavers?

</div></div>



Peasie,

Thanks much for the vote.

What you are seeing in the background of the picture with the chives are the 4 x 4 posts that make up the garden fence. The mesh is chicken wire which after a number of years was worn out and the big snow and ice storms of the past winter tore it down. You are looking through the fencing to the upright objects that look like tree trunks
Things are not as they seem. In the center the dark thinner thing is a metal stake for tomatoes and not a wooden post.

The fence is to keep out the (very vegetarian) woodchucks who, incidentally, REFUSE to chuck ANY wood ANY winter heating season.

I am heading out to the building materials store this week to get new chicken wire because the woodchucks love the lettuce right down to stem.
We also have thyme, greek oregano, arrugala (my favorite) catnip, strawberries,
garlic chives (which are chives that taste like a cross between chive and garlic) and the lettuce that comes back every year or self-sows, walking scallions.


Walking scallions, garlic chives , the regular chives can all be used when preparing roast stuffed groundhog.

The dish does not sound like something for the squeamish but it does help if instead of a WOODCHUCK you think of it as an enormous obese rat.

[johnnycakes]

Re: johnnycake's garden pics as promised pt#2

SandiF,

If that &quot;variegated tree&quot; is in a picture with the house behind it then it is a Redbud in full sun and only looking white when the leaves are really all solid green, heart shaped and bigger than your hand just like the tree in the background also a Redbud which has PURPLE flowers early in the spring for weeks and before its leaves come out.. It' s one of the first harbingers of warm weather to come. It's a rather short-lived but charming little tree.
We have more than we need because they self sow. ( in mostly inconvenient places).