My Garden in Spring 2009

Since an avid reader of my blog (BTW--thanks for reading my little blog) requested that I post before and after pictures of my garden, today's blog post will refelct some of the things I've done to my garden so far (which isn't much). In a couple of months I will post more pictures of my garden again. Hopefully, it will be much more spectacular in the coming months.

I'll try my best to not bore you with my descriptions of each picture and the details. With that said, here is my first picture, which shows the southern side of my garage. I put in a path last year on this side of the garage, which was placed in a checkered fashion (e.g. a square stepping stone with a square patch of dirt next to it, followed by a square of dirt followed by a square stepping stone next to it, and so forth). In the dirt squares I've decided to plant peonies. I've dug up the first square stone in the path with an intent of rerouting the path and growing raspberry canes where the square stone was laid. So far, my rose bush in the blue pot is still alive and well.

The following picture is a picture of my blueberry bushes grown in tubs. Some of the braches on all three of the bushes were trimmed by rabbits in the winter. Luckily, they've all survived the winter and the rabbits. Prior to taking this picture I had just finished clearing out the leaves from each of the tub, put in new peat moss and fertilizer, water, and mulch.

Further to the south of my blueberry bushes and on the other side of my yard is a clothesline pole (seriously, I do not know why I only have ONE clothesline pole, nor do I know what happened to the other pole). Since I am unable to hang a clothesline with only one pole and it may be semi-costly to remove the existing pole, I decided to finally put the pole to use as a potential trellis for my roses. I planted two climbing roses near the western base of the pole, a Joseph's Coat (the one on the left in the picture) and a hardy William Baffin. On the other side of the pole is my patch of dirt (which I've just aerated and added composted manure to) where I hope to grow lots of tomatoes.

The next picture is a close up of little green onions growing near the Jacob's Coat rose bush. Apparently, rose bushes do not mind onions and garlic planted near it.

Lastly, this sad picture is of my cherry tree and the sad, sad, state of the eastern part of my yard. At the end of last month I pruned my cherry tree and today I added mulch to the base of the tree. Around the base of the fence, on both sides of the fence, I've planted lots of prennials around it (although it does not look like it). The irises are struggling to send up new shoots, I see new growth from various lilies, and I'm just waiting for the poppies to come up.

So, I've done a lot of cleaning in and around my garden, but nothing too wonderful to show. I like to think that I'm setting the foundation for a beautiful garden to come. Thanks for taking a tour of my garden with me.