In many ways our retirement land is perfectly suited to us. The recent snow storm dumped enough on us that the man with the truck mounted plow was asked to plow us out. To our West, Norwich had about one half as much snow as we did. To our East more than twice as much snow buried cars. The return of above freezing temperatures and bright sunlight is exposing some ground. Winter Aconites are not native here but their bright yellow flowers peeking out from the snow has earned them considerable space in our gardens.
White flowered Snow Drops are also not native here but they hold a great deal of space in our gardens. Some of them are still covered with snow. The heart shaped leaves belong to what we see as a persistent weed.
These Bluets have presented challenges to us for decades. These grew in a friend's lawn downhill from the septic system. No surface discharge was ever seen but the ground there was always moist. The Bluets took and held considerable space among the lawn grass. Ours were transplanted just inside of the stone wall that defined our shade garden. They did not find our garden soil suitable but their seeds did take root in a depression in a wall stone. Our deer herd found them edible so a wire cage covers and protects these remaining plants.
When our daughter moved to NYC, one of the public gardens featured a gentle sloped lawn that was home for many Magnolia trees. When they were in bloom she would spread out under the trees for a scented and beautiful quiet experience. The source of our Magnolia tree was a nursery near Canandaigua Lake. It is among the plants that form their flower buds in the Fall. Our deer find these buds tasty and would eat them all if we failed to surround this tree with a fence and numerous wire cages. Some try to walk on the tops of the cages when snow cover is present. Their hooves fall in the spaces between the wires and the deer are denied this meal. We have the promise of numerous sweetly scented blossoms when Spring is reliably here.
Much of what we have features things built with our abundant field stones. A sizeable patio fills an area at the West end of our house. This Thyme was intended to fill the cracks between the stones but now it covers the patio from end to end. When it is in bloom bees feed here in huge numbers.
This Dianthus grows on the edge of the planting on the South side of the house. It covers an impressive area but the pictured plant is protected by a wire cage. Close by the exposed plants continue to grow but are thinned by animals feeding here.
Stones have always played a huge part in our life here. In my younger days planting beds five feet wide and thirty-two feet long had their soil screened to a depth of six inches to remove all of the stone. Large rocks were used to build walls while smaller stones were used to build paths three feet wide. Interesting stones are still looking for a home. This fossil filled piece identifies our ground as being part the Alleghany Plateau. Runoff from huge mountains to our East filled a sea. Depending on the force of the water eroding the mountains, our fill ranged from sizeable chunks to sand. Earlier in out time here we were able to identify many of the types of stone by name. Now what we see is interesting attractive stones.
