Anne sometimes likes to call this the crazy bed. The weeds and grass (and potential snakes in the weeds and grass) drive her crazy at times.  The bed is also home to a haphazard collection of shrubs, flowers and a growing number of trees. It seems to be the go-to bed for items that do not fit in other beds. Most of the trees in the crazy bed are very small at this point. But they too are crazy. Anne plants Redbuds like some people plant tulips — they can be thick. It totally makes sense though (in a crazy way) — the Redbuds are small and can hang out with a lone day lily, a dogwood, large swaths of euphorbia, winecups, primrose, wild mulleins, and dozens of others.

click the image for a much larger view.

I like the crazy bed for it’s unpredictability. Always a new species to be found that I didn’t know existed. Anne says there isn’t much going on there right now, but I say there is always something crazy going on. In time I’m sure this bed will have a new name. Maybe it will become the Redbud bed.

In this yogurt container grows a future magical forest. Each acorn was etched with unicorn horn by the unicorn himself. Sometimes though the engraved designs were a little juvenile, akin to what you might see in bathroom stalls, but still very magical and very powerful.

(Click the image for a larger view)

The grouping of the acorns corresponds to the stars in the late March sky. The alignment is critical to bridge the realms of our worlds. It also makes for a nice photo.

(Click the image for a larger view)

And so the forest grows and brings haven to all magical creatures – except for magical snakes because Anne doesn’t much care for them.

We’ve been having a few days of freezing fog lately. Makes for some neat photos. Make sure you click the 4 corner button near the bottom right to view full screen — looks better that way.

If the above slideshow doesn’t work for you (mom), these same pictures can be found on our flickr site.

Anne has been acquiring trees like she is on a mission. It’s a good mission and one that I am certain will pay off in the future. Even now the small trees add structure and levels to an otherwise empty stretch of lawn.

Lately, the tree of choice has either been Maple or Crab Apple. A Crab is featured above right up close to the porch. This should grow to about 20 feet and offer some shade relief to porch dwellers. The maples need a bit more space to grow and are planted past the garden in a large flat field of grass and weeds. The planting seems to go something like this:

1. Find a place (usually the most controversial and time consuming)
2. Dig a whole deep enough and extra wide enough for the pot/root ball
3. Place tree in hole – I usually comment on how it’s not straight at this point
4. Water and backfill with dirt
5. Place cardboard around base of trunk – helps keep out weeds and grass
6. Mulch goes on top of cardboard and then more water

When we were thinking of all the plans we might have for living out in the country, self-sustaining, gardening, etc, one of the givens was we would be growing fruit. And lots of it. Our first year, we ordered and planted over a dozen bare-root fruit trees and most of those did survive the winter. But they are still so small. No fruit set this year. I blame it on the apparent lack of bee activity, but they are young and shouldn’t be fruiting yet anyway.

We also moved strawberries, planted a large amount of raspberries, and about five blueberry bushes. Oh, and the grapes too. So, we were doing pretty well, but not good enough. 

I counted up the remaining space in our existing blueberry row and estimated how many fruit trees it would take to fill our killed-sod solarized spot. Then I gave Anne her dream mission: go and find six or seven blueberry bushes and about seven fruit trees. It didn’t take too long for the plants to be found and now they need planting. Where is the shovel?