Wednesday, January 2, 2013

The 2012 Garden


Happy New Year! I hope everyone had a great Christmas and New Year's Holiday.  I enjoyed every minute of it and even found time to garden. It's been so unseasonably warm here that on Sunday, I spent the afternoon cleaning up the perennial garden and tackling long overdue gardening tasks. My hubby and I cut back the butterfly bushes to the ground; if we don't do that, they tend to take over even more, growing taller than trees and blocking the sunlight for some of the other plants. I pulled up the spent annuals, cut back the peonies, fixed the broken peony hoops, and took the dead morning glory vines off the trellis. The cats had to "help" of course, and I love how they follow me about the garden, playing their typical games - wrestle, chase, pounce and hide-and-seek.  Groucho, Whitey, Shy Boy and Razzleberry all romped through the garden while we worked. We tried to give the cats rides in the garden cart pulled by the tractor, but they were scared by the noise of the machine and jumped out. They do enjoy rides in the wheelbarrow, especially Shy Boy, who perches near the front, paws up on the rim of the wheelbarrow like a mariner riding the prow of his vessel through the waves.

Today is Wednesday and many bloggers do something called "Wordless Wednesday" when they post only photos. I'm a writer; words are my tools. Yet I am also an amateur photographer, and love photographing my garden.  I suppose I can be both wordy and wordless...for me, perhaps, "Wordless" means a post of less than 500 words or so.  In any event, I thought you might enjoy a look back at the 2012 garden in photos in addition to the update. Happy New Year!

January - February 2012

Daffodils emerged through the snow and ice

Tomato seedlings and promise of things to come

March 2012

Pansies blooming....

The orchard, and peach trees budding...and the bees were hard at work.

Daffodils blooming in the orchard
April - May 2012

Columbine grown from seed

Sage, transplanted from the vegetable garden to the flower garden

Dogwoods blooming in April

Tulips...you can never have too many!

Pierre

The rose arbor my husband constructed for my birthday.

June - July - August 2012

Stella d'Oro daylilies in bloom

Spring crops harvested...three kinds of onions

Potatoes! 

While the late June derecho really hurt my tomato plants, we did get  a few good tomatoes.

Asparagus added to the garden

Butterflies

Echinacea "White Swan" and Gaillardia "Goblin"

September - October - November 2012

A new cat joins us in August...Genghis Khan.  

And Shadow finds three kittens in the woods in September: Groucho, Whitey, Shy Boy

Acorn squash harvest

Last of the butteflies in fall

Fall color on the snowball viburnum

Fall begins...

Christmas cactus in bloom

Shadow finally lets us take her picture!


December 2012

The newly adopted kittens celebrate their first Christmas...

Merry Christmas from all at Seven Oaks!

1 comment:

~Gardener on Sherlock Street said...

Nice 'year in photos.' You are being very productive. My garden is 'asleep' under some much needed snow. I need to start planning.