HIKES-A Forest Garden-"Walking Commons"

We have been driving by this for a while now- time to give it its own post LOL
Eventually I will park the truck and check it out.

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GARDEN- 2020 plants and shrubs

June 1 2020 was the earliest I could plant, it was pretty cold before that.
Outside the door below
3 impatiens and the solar light that never seems to be lit. :) at night even.

 large pot with one impatiens and three lobelia

mecardonia. had to go back the day after buying plants and get some potting soil. While there I took a photo of the plant tag because I could not remember what it was, just that it was new to me and pretty tiny yellow flowers.

small pot with impatiens surrounded by volunteers and spearmint and daisies about to bloom.

Cosmos seeds planted and small bird bath about to be moved.

two pots of impatiens

 large pot at base of stairs with Zinnia seeds planted

 one impatiens and 3 lobelia

 2 impatiens

 1 impatiens and really struggled the first 7-10 days

 sunflower seeds.

 Purple carefree petunias

columbine which returns each year

then out front to the left is a strip of land that used to be heavily littered. Each year these tiny white flowers in a green leaf cup come up in June. One year they were mowed down before they had a chance. I let it be known this year that they could wait to mow and please be careful. Finally found the name for them
Canadian Mayflower

later that same day in different light

volunteer honeysuckle. above
Pink honeysuckle struggling this year- I may have to grab some fertilizer from my brother.

close up of impatiens,and mecardia after 3 hours being in a pot

and another 2 of the Canadian Mayflower

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June 4 2020
columbine

Daisies out front June 10 2020

Canadian Mayflower

customer plants

Progress in the garden after 23 days
June 23 2020

gas cap cairn

my seedlings are struggling to say the least.
climbing hydrangea and oak leaf hydrangea are with blossoms and greening nicely.

Dorian's cairn and moved the small pot of impatiens out front.

baby bunny rabbit.

oak leaf hydrangea flowers- soon the tiny green bees will follow

June 27 2020
Daisies are fading but I noticed a clump of them in the dividing strip here looking fresh. Update on the rest of the garden June 28 2020

okay that blue lobelia will go where the zinnia seedlings are and the seedlings  will go in the flower box that the rabbits are eating. Hope I can raise that flower box to get it out of rabbit reach or build a fence around it.

June 29 2020
okay I know I am kidding myself to think this will work but I transplanted my zinnia seedlings into the bunny food dish (long flower box on the ground). And I fortified it with tomato stakes LOL
Planted the lobelia I got on Sunday into the pot where the zinnia seedlings were flourishing .


Like they say if animals are not eating your garden you are not doing it right.
small price to pay

some macro pix of the garden from June 29 2020

we finally got some rain and it brought out the volunteer violets! and I see Queen Anne's Lace sprouting up in the half circle.
July 3rd garden

 Cosmos

 and the zinnia seedlings are holding their own from the rabbit molestation LOL so far...

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coreopsis are up! Always a surprise

and hydrangeas are in full bloom and the bees are back.

July 18 2020
The oak leaf hydrangeas are turning rosy pink!

July 24 2020

cosmos bloomed!

July 30 2020 progress

August 8 2020

August 21 2020 

Zinnias thriving LOL behind squirrel and rabbit baffles

August 21 2020

zinnia & friend

more zinnias August 23 2020

season seems to be drawing to a near.

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I wonder if I will listen to myself if I make a note: no more seeds, no more impatiens.

The garden is waning down. Heat wave that lasted over a month. Then 2 inches of rain , heat and more rain. I will slowly start cutting back and pulling up.

September 5 2020

my zinnias pretty but behind sticks so they do not get eaten.

September 7 2020

The garden in a nutshell

the zinnias and the planter Jer placed at Mom's at Seaside that fried.

 

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Impatiens struggled just about anywhere I put them. Lobelia was fine until the storm. Even the carefree petunias were not as robust as last year. The volunteer mixed mint still there and the honeysuckle. But the pink honeysuckle looks like it is bare and being strangled by something. Hydrangea at least bloomed this year. The box of impatiens between them did pretty well. I must mention that I do not fertilize. The soil is enriched when I plant the flowers and that is it. The mecardonia plant did well may try that and lobelia again.

September 9 2020

Everything is definitely fading in the garden. Cleaned up milk crates for storage in the stairway. Noticed some volunteers thriving where there were impatiens just a few days before LOL and not oxalis. And found some new to me white quartz stones. Felt good to have soil on my hands. Very cool.

and then some more color appears like magic

 

zinnias and cosmos were late comers but worth it. No asters this year

September 19 2020

dried hydrangea heads with color

September 25 2020

Felt ambitious when I went down to feed the birds and ended up cleaning up and clipping back a bit.Not much left to do. Looks like the pink honey suckle has bit the dust. It will still be interesting twine!

Cut back the hydrangeas to the canes and cleaned out the pot of straggly impatiens.

not messing with the pots of volunteers yet- they sometimes pop forth with a surprise or two. Like a late aster.

No more carefree petunias. They were a beautiful purple this year. I think I will completely empty a few long flower boxes and use for height. The soil in all needs enriching.

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September 29 2020

Jer filled his planter out front with mums and a pumpkin- looks nice

October 3 2020

dainty white flowers bloomed!

more later I did more cleanup and clipping back

October 9 2020

zinnias still making me happy

 need a nap and need to update dropstitchditdit :)

November 15 2020 and the mecardonia is still thriving sort of.

Novemeber 21 still hangin in there

December 1 2020

getting ready to use the potting soil in this planter. Jer always empties it and I can use it. The pumpkin was moldy on the backside so that got tossed in the compost pile for the squirrels to enjoy. I hope.

after clipping back the mums and adding to the compost I started digging. Man it was tough at first but little by little I scooped it up by hand into the old Revere ware dutch oven I have below for such purposes. added the soil to the pots I have. Still more but I need the men to remove the plants first.

sun catcher and my table full of white quartz

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December 11 2020

Mecardonia finally got a hair cut there was still some life to it but a few frosts and winds storms will do it in for the year. Wondering if it will come back! dream on.

December 23 2020

progress of last big contribution to compost! Jer's pumpkin from out front

That's it for 2020 garden

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