Category Archives: Prayer Garrden

A Spring Walk at the Farm

Birds, Cherries, Cherry Tree, garden, garlic scapes,, Killdeer, Nature, potatoes, Prayer Garrden, Primrose, Reflections, Roses, Strawberries, The Farm, Wild Flowers, Windmill, , , ,

Hello and welcome! It’s a beautiful morning and I thought you might like to join me for a walk at the farm.

We are seeing new blossoms every day.

The white phlox that we added to the prayer garden last year are flowering.

The primrose are beginning to bloom.

and the roses are blooming.

Our peony has only a single flower this year, but it sure is a beautiful one.

We will be picking strawberries later.

But we won’t be cutting garlic scapes for about a week. The scape is the light colored, curved shoot in the middle. They are just beginning to form.

The wild roses are in full bloom. They are very fragrant – in fact you might have smelled their lovely scent before you saw the blossoms.

Daisies scattered here and there.

A flowering shrub that I have not identified. It does have a light pleasant fragrance.

A short stroll through the woods is shady and lush.

Beyond the woods the sun shines on the neighbor’s yard.

Mixed among the grasses you might notice wild plants such as selfheal (the purple flowers) and black medic (the yellow flowers). Both are edible and medicinal.

Fleabane is a common daisy-like wildflower in our area.

Our gardens are doing well so far. Some of the tomatoes have blossoms already.

Potatoes are also doing well.

Cabbage is coming along nicely. There are also green beans, eggplant and a few other things in this patch.

Our apple trees are loaded with apples this year. It’s looking like a we may have a bumper crop this fall.

Ripe cherries on one of our new trees. I harvest three wonderful, sweet cherries from this tree. Hoping for a bigger harvest next year.

The killdeer quadruplets are still running around. They are nearly as big as the parents so I expect they will be flying off soon.

But in about a week this killdeer and its mate, who decided to nest in the middle of our driveway (forcing us to detour around the area) should have four more babies running around.

And about a week after that these four killdeer eggs, that are being incubated in an unused area of the garden, should be hatching.

In the back field we see clover,

and these yellow flowers birdsfoot trefoil.

Butter cups under the spruce tree.

And look at those pinecones.

We have a large patch of milkweed in the back field. I have seen a couple of monarch butterflies in the area, so they likely have laid eggs as their caterpillars feed on milkweed leaves once they hatch.

Milkweed.

I believe this yellow flower is called common cat’s ear. It is scattered throughout the field.

More wild roses in the wood line. Enjoy their lovely fragrance.

When we arrive back by the prayer garden my husband points out the nest that some birds (sparrows I think) have built in the top of the windmill. That was not there two days ago. Fortunately, it does not interfere with the operations of the windmill.

Thanks for joining me for a spring walk at the farm. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did.

As a special treat for spending this time with me I am sharing this rare glimpse of the mourning dove who is nesting in the maple tree above our deck. It has been there about two weeks now and I have tried taking pictures many times but mostly I can’t see it through the leaves. I finally got a good photo. I have not seen its mate around, but I read that mourning doves take turns sitting on the nest with males usually there during the daytime and females on the nest at night.

Spring Bouquet

Cherry Tree, Daffodils, Dandelions, Flowers, Forsythia, Killdeer, Parkinson's Disease, Peach Tree, Pollinators, Prayer Garrden, Reflections, The Farm, Tulips, , , ,

I think it was our first fall at the farm when I planted a bunch of tulip bulbs in the area that has since become our prayer garden. I remember arriving at the farm one morning the following spring and being delighted that several of the tulips were blossoming. They were so pretty. Later that day when we returned for our afternoon walk all of the pretty blossoms were missing and all that remained were the stems and the leaves. I wanted to cry. Thus began our love-hate relationship with deer.

Our First Tulips

After fencing the farm two years ago and then fencing in the prayer garden last year, we thought it might just be safe to plant tulips. We planted 4.

The first one to open was red. I thought this fitting since the red tulip is a symbol for Parkinsons Disease awareness and April is Parkinsons Awareness month.

The yellow one opened one day later.

And a second red one opened today. I expect the last one will open tomorrow. It looks like it will be another red one.

White hyacinth with mini daffodils.

Peach Tree

We planted a peach tree last year and it was doing well this spring

Peach Tree

so, we decided to plant a second one. Both are blossoming. It would be nice to pick a few peaches in August.

Forsythia

Lots of Daffodils
Sweet Cherry Tree

We planted three sweet cherry trees last year.

Sweet Cherry Tree

The above two have nice blossoms. I would be thrilled to pick a handful of sweet cherries this year.

A honeybee enjoying the dandelions. We lost our bees over the winter and decided not to start a new hive this year so it’s nice to know there are still bees in the area.

A wildflower that popped up and I am still trying to identify. If you know what it is, please tell me in the comments section.

My husband found the killdeer sitting on her nest. There are four eggs in the nest. She is very camouflaged. Can you see her? (Look in the foreground.) He marked the area with the yellow flag so we remember to stay away from it.

Thanks for visiting! What’s blossoming in your area?

Welcome To August

Black-eyed-susan, Flowers, Hibiscus, Prayer Garrden, Reflections, Wild Flowers

Garden Work

In the past month we spent many hours working our way through the prayer jungle garden. The work included weeding, deadheading, pruning, thinning and even relocating some plants. Some areas even got a top dressing of mulch to finish it off.

It looks so much better but as we finished it up we made note that it was time to start weeding again because weeds had started to pop up again in the end where we started. A never-ending battle! Our next project is to put a small wire fence around it to keep chickens from scratching the mulch out. Chickens have no boundaries!

Mom Smiled At Me

Last Saturday, August 10 was my mom’s birthday. She would have been 79 this year. She was on my mind a lot that day especially when I was working in the Prayer Garden and saw the beautiful hibiscus in bloom.

Two years ago, on August 10th, I was having a rough day. I was really missing mom, so I went to my favorite greenhouse to buy something to plant in her memory. I bought a hibiscus. I wasn’t sure what color or variety it was because it was from the previous year’s stock and wasn’t labeled. It didn’t matter. I planted it in the prayer garden. It didn’t blossom that year, but I was thrilled when it blossomed last year – a beautiful pink but a different variety from those I already had.

It had a lot of buds last Saturday but none had opened. I was just thankful for the others that had.

Sunday morning when we arrived at the farm to finish up work on the prayer garden that hibiscus was blossoming. It felt like mom was smiling at me. 🙂 I will now look forward to seeing flowers on that bush each year around mom’s birthday.

Flowers Gone Wild

Last year I decided that panting black-eyed Susan’s along the fence might be a good idea. They are very prolific, compete well with other weeds and wildlife (deer and rabbits) don’t eat them. They spread through their underground rhizomes and by self-seeding and are often included in wildflower seed mixes. They are also beautiful and large patches can have a stunning effect.

This is the patch that I planted last year. They have really filled in that corner. I planted another area along the fence this year and may continue propagating them until the whole fence is lined with them. 🙂

Thanks for visiting.

An Explosion of Color

Flowers, Prayer Garrden, Reflections

Suddenly our prayer garden is busting with color.

I suspect the hot days we are having have something to do with it.

Pink and red rose bushes. Sorry I can’t give their formal names. My husband rescued these from a nursery he was working at a few years back. They had been left to die.

Evening primrose. Again, I’m not sure of the variety because a lady who my husband worked for when he was doing landscaping dug some up and gave them to him. I do know that they are a variety that blossom during the day and now that the deer are no longer eating them they are very prolific.

Roses in the foreground backed by lavender, and Asiatic Lilies in the distant background.

These Asiatic Lilies were planted 8 or 10 years ago. Each year they would send up green shoots, then form a bud, but before they even got a chance to open a deer would come along and bite the top off, so we had never seen them flower until this year.

The fence that my husband put up last year, which encloses our entire property, is a deer deterrent. The deer can certainly jump the 4-foot fence but mostly they don’t. We don’t have nearly as much deer damage as we used to.

Another Asiatic Lily that we have never seen flower before.

I had to add at least one new plant this year. This Foxglove was my choice.

My husband came home yesterday and told me that we need to add a white flowering perennial to the prayer garden.

He says we need to go shop for it today. Who am I to argue? 🙂

Thanks for visiting.