The Ultimate Play Tree

A cascade of branches sweep the ground., hiding an interior that is....

...a play set with jungle gym and twisted monkey bars...

a place for the imagination to run wide...a place to sit and dream...

a place to climb to the skies and explore the stars...

It is an European Weeping Beech and is hardy in zones 4 to 7...and is now on the top of my list of trees to plant on our 13 acres.  I'm wondering why I've never seen one before. My brother who is as interested in plants as I am, had never seen one either. As you may tell from the photos we both were completely enamored with this beautiful tree. How did we manage to get through childhood with out this tree?

Photos taken on our trip to the Hidden Lake Gardens last weekend.

Hosta Garden At Hidden Lake Gardens

 One of my brothers is visiting me for a few days. As he loves plants too, we took the opportunity to finally go visit Hidden Lake Gardens, which is about an hour from where I live. Hidden Lake Gardens is 200 acres of beautifully maintained gardens, hiking trails, nature areas with meadows and forest, scenic winding paved roads, and a conservatory. There are all kinds of rare plants and trees and everything is tagged. It is the kind of place where you need to bring a notebook and take notes so you can remember what you need to buy later to plant in your own garden.

I thought we had given ourselves plenty of time to explore the many gardens. As it turned out, we were barely at the first garden, the Hosta Garden, for more than 5 minutes when my brother turned to me and said, "How long did you say we are going to be here? We need at least three days."

To which I replied, "We will be lucky if we get beyond this hosta garden at all today."

(We did manage to see more than just the hosta garden, but not much more!)

The hosta garden was full of hostas of many different sizes, textures, and colors. I knew that there are hundreds of different kinds of hostas, but have never seen so many in one place. The thing that amazed me is that  a garden planted 90% with just one type of plant worked---the garden wasn't just educational, it was  a work of beauty.

The entrance of the hosta garden has several mini varieties that are barely more than a few inches tall.



A little stream runs through the garden and adds to the charm. (It is hard to see in my photo unfortunately.)

This one was my favorite for the flowers. It is called "Tosana" and its abundant delicately striped flowers rise tall above short green leaves.

This one is my favorite for a combination of foliage and flowers. "Joseph" is a medium size compact plant with with luxurious pink flowers and glossy green leaves.

My favorite for foliage alone (it was hard to pick a favorite!) has got to "Silver Threads and Golden Needles". The gold and green are brilliant in the shade.

And finally a favorite place for wedding photos in the garden....

Some day I would love to have a garden much like this one. One can always dream!

(Next Hidden Lakes Garden blog post: The Ultimate Playhouse Tree!)



Word Picture for my Grandfather

In Memory of My Grandfather

5/10/1910 to 5/24/2011

A man of quiet strength and simple faith

thoughtful and kind,

but with an Irish twinkle 

in his eye

and a teasing sense of humor

He was a quiet consistency

through my childhood

faithfully visiting

 in spite of  parental rebuffs

it was always a good day

when Grandpa came

to visit

Letters, birthday cards,

 silly poems,

boxes full of

 little flea market finds

make up treasured memories

of my childhood

He was an inspiration

as he cared for Grandma

at home

in her last years

her body shrunken and small

and mind destroyed by dementia

a shell of the dynamic woman

he married

showing me what true love does

for the person who is beloved

I think that watching him

care so gently

for her

may have planted the seed in my heart

that led (eventually) to me

becoming a nurse

I don't think he ever

 forgot a grandchild's birthday

even when he turned 100

I still have my cards from him to prove it

His sense of humor

and gift for writing silly poems

seemed to improve with age

as well

A toddler meets the ocean...

...for the first time.  And loves it.

(We stopped for a day in New York City to visit Terry's son and daughter in law and their little boy. These photos where taken at the beach at Coney Island...where to my husband's disappointment, you can't actually get a Coney Island hot dog. It turns out Coney dogs originated in Michigan--not Coney Island.)

Vermont Log Cabin

My brother who got married on Saturday, built this cabin, log by log, for his bride. I admit I am a bit envious! There are still a few details on the both the inside and outside to finish up, but they have moved in. He built everything himself from logs, including the kitchen and bathroom cabinets.

I love how light and airy it is on the inside and it smells delightfully of pinewood.



(I refrained from taking more pictures of the inside out of respect, as the kitchen and main living areas were a bit cluttered after the busy weekend of getting ready for and recovering from a wedding, but trust me, the entire inside of the cabin is a photo shoot waiting to happen. Maybe during my next visit to Vermont...)

Bad Hair Day

Why I have a hard time getting anything done around here...

One of the projects I badly wanted to complete while my brother was here, was to finish the little garden at the bottom of the driveway. We have a long driveway that is sandwiched between two other houses and unless you look closely, it  looks like it is just a trail headed off into a cornfield  I wanted to plant a garden at the bottom so that it looks a little more distinct. Last fall we hauled a bunch of rocks to the bottom of the driveway and I started digging and removing some of the sod. We managed to screw our address to one of the big rocks, but  that was about as far as we got. All spring and summer long the weedy rock patch was the eyesore of the neighborhood.
On Saturday we removed the weeds and dug out a bunch of rocks. Yesterday we made a concerted effort to finish the garden. Our plan was to use the front end loader to scoop loam out of the bog, and haul it down to the garden to raise the soil level and increase the moisture capacity of the soil. That plan ended in about 30 seconds once we got the loader on the edge of the bog.

The rest of the morning was spent unearthing the loader. My husband had the bright idea to use the loader to jack the front of the tractor out the loam. He says that is the standard way to get a front end loader unstuck.(Sometimes I wonder how he knows all this--he didn't spent much time around farm equipment before I dragged him out into the country last summer.)

Once it was clear that the loader wasn't going to work, we went on to plan B. We backed the trailer into the woods, just barely squeezing it between trees--and stopping well before the the bog started. Then Rene and I dug out 50 buckets full of loam and carried them over to the trailer. A little more work maybe, but at least we didn't get stuck.

I divided the little garden into four beds with a path in the center for easy weeding. Once we got the loam worked into the beds, we took the trailer and headed up to the wood chip pile for wood chips to mulch the path. On the way there though, I stopped at the compost pile to drop off the sod and weeds that we had dug out of the garden earlier.  I don't drive this old horse trailer enough and completely forgot that the trailer is much wider than the SUV and as a result ran it over our well cap and ended up with the well cap tightly wedged between the two wheels on the trailer.

So my husband had to come to my rescue again. He hopped on the front end loader  (that he had previously rescued from the swamp) and was able to lift the trailer off the the well cap and set it down on the other side of it. No apparent harm done to either the well or the trailer.

I think we need to make a large marker for the well though. Earlier this fall my husband went at it full speed with the loader while we we ripping out the yew bushes in the backyard. (He claimed he forgot it was there.) Once we start snowplowing this winter we will most likely hit it again unless it is very clearly marked--the plastic "rock" that covers it apparently isn't good enough to keep us from inadvertently attempting to damage it.

The pile of wood chips is from the electric company. This summer we gave them permission to dump all their shredding on our property and ended up with a beautiful pile of mulch.

We filled in the path in the garden with 45 buckets of wood chips. I brought the path all the way up to the level of the beds since I know that as the mulch decays the level will go down. And also with our very sandy soil, we need all the moisture holding capacity that we can get, otherwise I will be watering every day.

The garden is ready to plant and is one of the best prepared gardens I have made, many thanks to my brother who didn't give up on helping me despite the disasters of the day.

(I hope I didn't scare him off from coming to visit me again. Today wasn't the only day we had problems. On Saturday we attempted to shred some brush---it was one problem after another and he got totally disgusted with our equipment. I tried to explain to him that in my life equipment malfunctioning is the norm...you spend two thirds of the time fixing or rescuing the equipment and one third actually doing something useful. Which explains why I have a hard time getting anything done around here.)

The Driveway Garden--ready to plant!

Planting English basket willows

I'm taking a few vacation days this week and next to get some fall work done. One of my brothers is visiting until Monday and I plan on putting him to work. Already yesterday afternoon we finished a task that I have been working on all summer--getting my 45 English basket willows into the ground.

I planted them in a row along the edge of the vegetable garden. My plan in the spring is to take cuttings from these willows and double my planting. By the spring of 2012, I should have enough shoots to start working with. I'm looking forward to experimenting with fences and living willow structures, as well as finally have a source of willow in my backyard for baskets.

I bought seven different varieties--each variety has a different characteristic--some have thick strong shoots that are perfect for weaving  fences, some are ideal for living willow structures, and some have the thin long shoots that are idea for baskets. Plus we have a nice range of  the colors,  from bright yellow to orangy red, and dark green to smokey blue.

I bought foot long cuttings for $1.50 each this spring and potted them up in moist potting soil. This photo was taken April 11 the day I potted them up.

Varieties are:
Blue streak
Basfordiana Farndon
Green Dicks
Golden
Noir de Villaines
Polish Purple
Brittany Greens

Last spring Trina from All That is Good, sent me a some cuttings from her English basket willows.  I potted them up, then we decided to move before I got them in the ground at our old home. Amazingly they survived a summer of extreme neglect as we prepared for a move that happened far quicker than anyone even dreamed it would (the pots dried out multiple times and willows looked like they were dried to a crisp on more than one occasion.) But with an occasional good soaking most of them survived and they took off this spring when I finally got them in the ground.

Budding Photographer

                      My niece Annah practices her photography skills at a recent wedding.

Old Rag Hike

Yesterday my husband, one of my brothers, and I hiked the one of the more difficult trails in the Blue Ridge Mountains in Virgina. It was a nine and half mile round trip hike with the first 5 miles going up the mountain. About a mile from the summit, the trail fades and the hike is a scramble between and across large bare rocks. The hike down the mountain in much more gentle, with about 2 and half miles of the trail being a maintained fire road.

At the peak of the mountain the rangers tend a lovely laurel garden, which was in full bloom for our visit. We saw one of rangers, raking and picking up dead twigs. The closest you can drive to to the summit is 2 miles so the ranger had to hike up with his tools. My brother and I both agreed that would be our dream job, to tend a garden on the top of a mountain.

On the banks of the Potomac River

The last several days have been spent in Virginia with family. We had two weddings in two days (an older brother and a younger sister). For my brother's wedding the hired photographer was a no show (one of the bride's biggest nightmares!). Hopefully between a friend with a nice camera who jumped in and took photos during the ceremony and with family taking phot0s during the reception they will have plenty of photos and memories. My contribution was attempting some portraits by the Potomac River after the reception. These are my first ever attempts at taking photos like these. It was fun and maybe I will try more of this type of thing.

Today my husband and I are hiking the Old Rag Mountain with one of my brothers. Then tomorrow we head back to Michigan.

100 Years Young

My Grandfather, born May 10, 1910, holds his newest three week old great grandson (my newest nephew), born almost 100 years later. Grandpa still lives by himself. His vision and hearing are going, but his mind is as sharp as a tack.

The biggest morel of all!

(I'm leaving this morning for the East Coast to celebrate my Grandfather's 100th birthday. Looking forward to seeing family again in New Jersey,then the hills of upstate New York where I grew up, and last of all, my newest nephew in Vermont. I'll catch up with the blogging again when I get back.)

This giant morel was the reward for hours of pulling garlic mustard out of our woods.

Brush Hog

Terry got a brush hog a few days ago (a Craig's List special for only $250). This has got to be the best $250 we have ever spent. This attachment is amazing. Our fields and wood were quickly being taken over by Autumn olives and wild roses. I wasn't looking forward to cleaning everything out by hand. Especially those vicious rose bushes. Parts of the woods are so full of them you can't walk through without being torn to shreds. Terry made short work of all the brush in the meadows today. (I marked the few trees and bushes I wanted saved.) Not only does it cut the smalls trees and bushes down, it also shreds them into little bits, as well as mows the grass and weeds. Looking forward to having him clean out the woods with it. I just need to mark the wild blueberry bushes, so they don't get destroyed.

Terry's grandsons came to visit today and 6 year old Liam had a blast driving the tractor around.