Update on 2016 projects

May is the month when my garden really wakes up, although everything is blooming later this year than in recent years. All three of my big project areas from last year have grown in so much: the rose garden, the back corner - which expanded into a larger meadow - and the sunny hillside. I'm really enjoying all of them, doing some weeding but not much other maintenance now. A garden is never done, but it's nice to be able to enjoy these areas as they are while I'm doing a lot of work on new projects.

The rose garden is now more than just roses! I have a small gap to fill in on the west fence where my fern leaf lavender plants did not survive the winter - darn, I loved them. I'm looking at replacing them with dwarf phlox, but haven't decided yet. Also yarrow did not survive in the north fence section, so I need to find a little more groundcover there.

These pictures are from January 2016, May 2016 and May 2017.

Rose garden, west fence, looking north

Rose garden, north fence, looking east

Rose garden, lower section looking east

My favorite part of the rose garden is the corner with bearded irises and peonies getting ready to bloom.

Corner of the rose garden

The sunny hillside has grown in so much! I've had to move some of kinnikinnick and penstemon around because the lupine and raspberries grew so quickly. The hot lips salvia survived the winter, barely - it's much smaller now but hopefully will grow quickly again. Yarrow again did not survive, maybe because they were specialty varieties and not the straight species.

Sunny hillside, looking south - January 2016, May 2016, May 2017

A closer look at the raspberries:

Raspberries, looking downhill (east)

I was a little worried about the meadow early in the spring and ended up weeded out a lot of shotweed. I've also been weeding out some grass and creeping buttercup, but now the native seeds are growing in. There are also non-native poppies because I let them go to seed last year along the bottom of the hillside; I'll deadhead so they don't take over. The shrubs under the arborvitae and across the middle are growing nicely too, as well as the trees (shore pines in the corner, crab apple and vine maple in the middle).

May 2016 and May 2017, looking south

May 2016 and May 2017, looking north

There is a forest of poppies all the way in the back corner too, I can't remember planting seeds there but must have. The invasive knotweed that was here is almost all gone, just a few pieces that I'm digging up as I find them. 

Mystery poppies