Peck Life

January Garden

The January garden can be dismal at first glance. But, after spending 30 minutes walking the yard the other day, the longer I was out there, the more I saw. A lot of things are sleeping, but there is a small bunch of tried and true performers who always let me know that spring is on the way. Little did I know, it would all be covered with snow a few days later so I’m thankful to have captured a glimpse of what’s been goin’ on!

My two favorites - the witch hazel and the early magnolias, always give that first inkling of life. I was giddy to see those very first few yellow strands of winter bloom.

I also have an early blooming euphorbia that shoots out poufs of lime green this time of year. The flowers will follow in about a month. The leaves are so bright against the yucky brown!

What the garden lacks in luster this time of year, the sky gives us in amazing sunrises and sunsets. Our house faces east, toward the mountains, so I’m partial to seeing all the yellow, orange, purple, and pink sunrises. January and February usually produce some of the best!

Such gorgeous country we live in!

December Garden

Winter is here and the colors of the November garden have been replaced with dying brown and frost. The leaves are almost all gone but a few still hang on. This winter I’m most excited about my Ilex Verticillata, which got a few berries for the first time. It’s taken a few years to get established. One day it will be huge and I can use the berries for decorating all winter like Martha.

I got excited the other day when I saw the magnolia in the front yard with fat fuzzy buds – only 2 more months and it will be in full bloom! A good reminder that there are always things living out there even when it seems bleak.

November Garden

The weather yesterday was frigid, gusty, and dry. The garden is slowly dying for the year but it’s also still very much alive; it beats and thumps at me every time I go out there. There is so much going on and the wind made everything that much more feisty. I love the way the air just IS right now.

Top 10 Fall Stunners

One of my favorite things about fall are the colors so abundantly found in all of our lovely Pacific Northwest plants. I sometimes forget just how lucky we are to live here – SO MANY things grow {especially moss}. While it’s easy to garden with plants that give you showy flowers all summer, sometimes good “fall” plants aren’t that apparent, usually because they are shrubs and trees that look plain green all year. Boring right?! I think not! I actually wasn’t aware of half of these plants until I took extensive plant ID in college {did you know I have a degree in forestry?!}, so I thought I would share my secret loves with you in case you are looking to fill any gaps in your garden.

1. Witch Hazel (Hamamelis). Photo taken by me at the Washington Park Arboretum.

2. Beautyberry (Callicarpa). Photo by Jacki-Dee.

3. Fothergilla. Photo taken by me at the Washington Park Arboretum.

4. Burning Bush (Euonymous). Photo by me in our yard.

5. Mountain Ash (Fraxinus). Photo by Roger Lynn.

6. Ginko (Ginko). Photo by Jhary.

7. Oak Leaf Hydrangea (Hydrangea). Photo by Dbarronoss.

8. Katsura (Cercidiphyllum). Photo by Elle-Epp.

9. Crabapple (Malus). Photo by Dmitri_66.

10. Sourwood (Oxydendrum). Photo by Gak.

For more inspiration and tips on plant selection, here are a few of my favorite Pacific Northwest Gardening Books:

Dahlias

I love dahlias. This time of year, I’m especially reminded just how wonderful these flowers really are. They come in every size, shape, and color imaginable, making them perfect for almost all parties, weddings, or events. There’s nothing better than a giant dinner plate dahlia that can fill an entire vase with just a single stem.

Hope you all have a beautiful Monday!

{both images above from design*sponge}

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In the Garden

Wow, it’s August! I feel like the garden was barely getting started and then all of a sudden, everything is in bloom and some things are already done done for the year – what a short season! Our veggies are doing just ok…the peas are over, lettuce is happy, and beans/pumpkins/squash are on the horizon for the next few months. The bare root raspberries we planted in late winter are growing but not very vigorously…hmm…maybe next year we’ll get a good crop. The most successful plants in our garden right now are the WEEDS. No matter how many I pull, there are 100 more the next day. Sky loves to spend time outside so now when we go out, I bring my bucket and can usually get a bin full before he needs my attention. I actually think it’s therapeutic to pull weeds…I like doing all of it except for buttercups, those suckers are SO HARD to get out.

One of my most favorite plants in our garden is the purple smoke bush (cotinus coggygria). It completely transforms it’s look as the day moves through each hour, depending on the amount of dew drops, how the sun is hitting it, or whether it’s cold or hot outside. I have a soft spot for it in the morning when it’s covered with dew….is it weird to love a plant so much?!

When I see all the dew and the spider webs….and the angle of the sun rising lower….it makes me feel like autumn. It already FEELS like fall some mornings. As much I feel like we’ve had zero summer so far {and that’s really a bum out}….I’m secretly super excited for fall and all that it brings. You didn’t hear it from me but 2 pairs of fleece footie pj’s were purchased the other day at Costco for a certain sweet little boy…..they were too hard to resist.

In the Garden

I can’t believe it’s been almost 3 weeks since I’ve posted garden photos! My how time flies. I’ve taken pictures for this post 3 or 4 different times now. By the time I sit down to actually write, the pictures are out of date; everything is changing that fast!

Things are growing, minus my lettuce, so I finally bought some starts! The slugs seem to be out in full force this year. So far, they’ve devoured all my cucumber starts, my sunflowers, and a pumpkin.

This time, I decided to try Picasa to make some picture collages. I’ve actually never used this program much but I love it!! It’s so fast and easy! And now, for some garden eye candy!

In the Garden

Gardening is one of my favorite pastimes – it’s probably the most relaxing thing I can think to do besides going to the spa. There is something so calming about pulling weeds, and making progress, and feeling like you are productive, not the mention the fact that you can grow food for your family from tiny seeds that started as nothing. These days, it’s hard to get time alone in the yard {or alone anywhere for that matter} but I somehow manage to squeeze in an hour here or an hour there…usually during a nap or after Sky’s in bed if it’s still light out. The projects are never ending and the weeds are always there, no matter how many get yanked the time before.

I thought it might be fun to chronicle our ever changing yard for you {and me, so I can remember was it was like}. Summer is s l o w l y arriving and each day, something new is blooming. Since this is the first installment, here is a little background:

When we bought our house in 2006, the previous owners had gone to great lengths to suppress any sort of growth. It didn’t really look THAT bad on the surface but as we started to peel back the layers {literally}, we quickly realized there was a lot of work to be done. Because I like to garden, I obviously wanted a place with soil that could sustain life – yeahhh, not happening to start. Underneath that lovely bark was layers of black weed fabric stapled into the ground with long stakes. Underneath that? Solid, rock-like clay with no sign of anything living. Yuk. It took a good year-ish for us to pull out all the weed fabric, till the soil, and add bag after bag of compost.

As if that wasn’t bad enough, the back garden was filled with a dump truck full of sand {100 70lb sandbags to be exact}…like a giant sandbox. Not only did the cats of the neighborhood use it as a communal litter box, but it took many many weekends to bag it all up and get it removed. To this day, I still can’t believe our families were gracious enough to help us fill bags….so dusty and gross.

Here are 2 snapshots of our yard, one from 2006 shortly after we moved in, and one from today:

Now that you know the history of the yard {lucky you!….is anyone still reading this?!}, here are a few highlights of what’s happening RIGHT NOW.

Vegetables & Berries: In our back garden, I started some veggies from seed. So far, the lettuce, radishes {not pictured}, peas, and potatoes are up! I also planted carrots and beans....still waiting on those. We also have several raspberry plants {new this year} and blueberries.

Do you want to know a current low-light in the garden? This lavender:

I’m pretty sure it’s not coming back to life anytime soon. Normally I wouldn’t care too much but I have THIRTEEN of these. I planted them in the veggie garden last year in hopes it would help define the walking pathways and eventually look something like this:

It was kind of a surprise because they did awesome last summer. In fact, they bloomed TWICE all the way into fall! I’m not sure what happened but I’ve noticed the lavender in other yards doesn’t look much better so maybe it just got too cold? I’ve never had much luck with this plant/herb so maybe it’s a sign I should just stop trying to grow it.

Moving along to the flower garden, there is a gorgeous oriental poppy blooming {my mother’s day present}, euphorbia, bee balm, snowball viburnum, iris, and a mix of sweet woodruff and ajuga.

The front yard has a lot of shrubbery goin’ on but I think it needs more color. The neighbor kids like to use our yard as their play area and thoroughfare to the next house, so one of my goals was to add plants that stayed green all year and provided enough height/size to serve as a friendly barrier. The border is a mix of hebe, euonymus, lithodora, heuchera, and ninebark along with a small blue spruce and magnolia {Magnolia × loebneri 'Leonard Messel' my FAVORITE}. In between, there are other smaller plants but honestly….most of the other stuff I’ve planted has DIED. It seems like I’m continually planning this area of the yard so my goal this summer is to get more flowers in there.

Our dining room table….it’s just the best!

Hope you enjoyed the tour of our yard and I’m amazed if you are still at all reading this! haha!

You’re a man-eater…

This is our front porch. Every spring the clematis quietly spouts and begins to wrap its tendrils around the deck posts without us really realizing what is going on. Then, one day in July – BOOM! It looks like this!! We just love it!

 

Flower Arranging

One day Josh brought me home a HUGE bouquet of flowers from one of the market stands in Monroe. Instead of plopping the entire thing in a vase, I spent about an hour dissecting it, working it into 3 separate arrangements, adding some of my own flowers, and viola! I really should have been doing something more productive with the precious amount of free time I have but this was pretty fun! Plus, I was really excited to use my different green vases. Wouldn't being a florist be a great job?