April and May have been a blur of flowers, birds, hard work, and poison ivy.
As mentioned in a previous post, we’ve been doing some pretty extreme work on our property, so here’s a collection of photos from the last two months.
Mom finally brought the poetry magnets back out, so our fridge is currently full of them
This is the first dead hedge that we finished, and it exceeded our expectations. It turned out so beautifully, and successfully hides most of the white plastic fence behind it.
After we finished this one, we got super excited to build another, so it wasn’t long after this that we took down the old big chicken pen (Mary Todd isn’t using it, since it’s extremely unsafe with all the hawks we have around), and used the stakes to start our next hedge.
This is the start of our second dead hedge; Riley and I built this in just two mornings, and we’re planning to continue extending its length until it creates a wonderful barrier between us and the neighbors. This one has mostly been built out of what we’ve cut down in the old chicken pen, the majority of which was invasive honeysuckle and buckthorns.
You can watch us build it in this week vlog!
Mom bought this 50-cell tray of native wildflowers (plus two elderberry bushes, and a rhubarb plant!) from our friend and local organic farmer. We got:
- anise hyssop
- wild bergamot
- golden alexander
- sneezeweed
- columbine
- late figwort
- prairie alumroot
- shrubby st. john’s wort
Most of these were planted right into the meadow; our plan is to eventually have the meadow turn into a sea of flowers, instead of all non-native grasses.
Last year Mom bought one large wild geranium plant; we were all super excited, since it’s now one of our favorite native wild flowers. But, stupidly, we didn’t do our research, and planted it in the meadow. Right in the baking sun.
The poor plant shriveled up and was dead before the end of summer.
But shockingly, the roots managed to survive, because the plant popped back up this spring looking better than ever! We quickly cleared this spot in the yard, and transplanted it here, where the environment is much better suited to it. We got a dozen more baby geranium plants, plus some columbines, and will also be adding some yarrow to this spot!
The geranium grove is right next to our old goat pen, which was a project to clear. It was an absolute sea of poison ivy, multiflora rose, bittercress, and bittersweet. But we managed to clean it up, and left behind the millions of native goldenrod babies. Now, instead of being a sea of poison ivy, it’s quickly turning into a sea of goldenrod.
We also have a little birdhouse set up in the goat pen, and it’s been claimed by a house wren pair (Shrek & Fiona). You can see them in this recent short!
Mary Todd officially turned 13 on April 29th (watch her birthday short here!). She’s now the oldest chicken I’ve ever had, and seems to still be healthy and loving life.
She has not been particularly pleased with our yard work when it’s anywhere near her pen, but she’s been very brave about it all, so we must appreciate her effort (I make sure to give her the clumps of sod we dig up; an offering to the god).
This area has been the absolute worse job so far. Unfortunately I don’t have a before photo that does justice to the absolute mess that it was (you can see the work in progress in this week vlog though!), but it was one giant tangle of bittersweet, Japanese knotweed, poison ivy, and multiflora rose.
We needed Dad and the tractor to help us out with the job, but even then we ended up with some pretty annoying cases of poison ivy (despite being dressed and covered from head to toe). Thankfully we got to this area at just the right time though, because this is where my milkweed patch grew last year (where I found my monarch eggs), and we discovered that it was starting to pop back up! It has spread so much since last year, and so far I’ve counted over 70 sprigs.
This will be our official Monarch garden area, so we’re planning to introduce a couple more kinds of milkweed to this area, and also planted some blue asters
Some more of the native plants we got were a redbud tree (above), a witch hazel bush, and a viburnum. Redbuds bloom with tons of gorgeous pink flowers all along the branches in the spring; witch hazel blooms with yellow flowers in the fall; viburnums produce berries that birds love (we planted this one pretty close to the house so that we can see the birds foraging!)
Interestingly enough, while clearing places like the old chicken pen, we’ve actually discovered some wild viburnums already growing on our property! We also found a whole grove of dogwoods, and multiple meadowsweet bushes.
We plant all of these new plants in this week vlog!
Unrelated to yard work (or native plants), I’d like to report that two of my tulips that I planted last year successfully bloomed again this year!
I likely would’ve had a few more, but I didn’t realize soon enough that apparently rabbits quite enjoy chomping their leaves, so that stunted a few of the plants. Next year I’ll make sure to protect them sooner and hope for a few more flowers.
Our bed of daffodils filled out so much more this year, and they stayed in full bloom for weeks. I enjoyed every second of seeing their cheerful yellow faces! You can see more of them (and me) in this YouTube Short!
art by jordan rae 