Category Archives: Our Garden

Images taken in our Pennsylvania garden

Spring is Coming

Emerging Daffodils
Heatherwood Crabapple Grove

Today we change over to Daylight Saving Time. Spring is just around the corner! These emerging daffodils are harbingers of what will soon come.

We are far behind on our winter clean-up to prepare for spring. New growth is starting everywhere, but we have not started cutting back last years spent grasses and perennials. I have started a little pruning, but have a long, long way to go! We also have a lot of transplanting to do before we start our spring planting. The new plants are scheduled to be delivered in mid-April. I’m getting a little nervous.

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Winter Garden #10

Grass Lined Garden Path
Heatherwood Winter

A grass-lined garden path wanders up from our meadow’s center circle. The path is bordered with ‘Piglet’ fountain grass. Red twig dogwoods and columnar Taylor junipers separate the path from the rest of the garden with contrasting colors and textures. During the winter, I can catch a glimpse of the garden beyond.

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Winter Garden #9

Spent Hosta Leaves
Heatherwood Winter

During my winter walks in our garden, I constantly look down at my feet. Interesting patterns frequently emerge from fallen leaves and spent perennials. These spent hosta leaves topped with fallen crabapple leaves caught my attention. My first thought was that I should really clean up the mess. I turned my head and then thought that this was an interesting pattern of leaves that would make a nice image.

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Winter Garden #8

Meadow Grasses
Heatherwood Winter

Remember that brown is a color. Heatherwood is full of various shades of brown in the winter. Grasses and spent perennials grace our garden with various tones of brown and textures during the winter months. The various grasses in the meadow have different forms, colors, and textures. Throughout the winter, they keep my interest peaked. Very soon, they will all be cut back to make room for spring’s spurts of new growth. The meadow will soon look bare.

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Winter Garden #7

A Chief Joseph Lodgepole Pine Named Fred
Heatherwood Winter

Chief Joseph lodgepole pines are major stars in Heatherwood’s winter garden. During the winter their needles turn brilliant yellow. Soon they will start to transition in the spring into their light green summer color. Mahonia Repens creeping Oregon grape encircles the Chief Joseph with its dark purple colored leaves.

This little Chief Joseph is named Fred. Mary enjoyed our first Chief Joseph, planted in 2019, so much that we planted our second one in 2020. She still was not satisfied, and we looked for another in 2021. Alas, we could not find one from our regular nursery suppliers. She didn’t give up and found one on line and ordered it. When it arrived she selected where she wanted it planted. She supervised her “in-house” gardener to plant it just right. She named it Fred. Now, three years later, it is thriving.

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Winter Garden #6

Autumn Leaves, Sedum, and Thyme
Heatherwood Winter

Even the ground is covered with winter color and textures in our garden. Purple woolly thyme provides the base of this vignette. The red new growth of Tri-color sedum highlights the image, while the fallen autumn leaves create a gentle overlay.

Enjoying this little scene provides a stimulus to add more and more ground covers to our spring planting plan! Spring is less that a month away.

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Winter Garden #5

Abstract Art in the Garden
Heatherwood Winter

Garden art is all around me as I walk through Heatherwood. I just need to discover a way to display it. I saw this combination of ornamental grasses in the foreground, red twig dogwoods in the mid ground, and yellow twig dogwoods in the background peeking through the red twigs. I thought of an abstract watercolor painting of beige, red, and yellow brush strokes. I played with a series of multiple exposures and “voila”, an abstract painting appeared.

Have a happy day!

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Winter Garden #4

Red Pine, Red Twig Dogwood, Crabapples
Heatherwood Winter Contrast

Contrast is more than color. What caught my interest in the above image is the textural contrast between the needles of the red pine, the thin stems of the red twig dogwoods and the smooth bark of the crabapples. The green and red color didn’t hurt either. Heatherwood is full of winter interest.

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Winter Garden #3

Zafiro, Valley Cushion, and Red/Yellow Twig Dogwoods
Heatherwood, Winter

The combination of evergreens, ornamental grasses, and deciduous shrubs provide winter color and contrast to our Heatherwood garden. The blue, tight needled, Zafiro blue spruce and the green Valley Cushion mugo pine coupled with the yellow and red twig dogwoods and beige ornamental grasses create a colorful and textured contrast to this little vignette.

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Winter Garden #2

Midwinter Fire Dogwoods
Heatherwood, South Bed

The south planting bed separates Heatherwood from our neighbor’s yard. To maintain our neighbor’s view of the surrounding hills, we have planted a combination of various dogwood shrubs and ornamental grasses. The midwinter fire dogwoods provide an orange highlight along the border. They are grouped together with other yellow and yellow twig dogwoods. Together with the ornamental grasses, they provide both our neighbor and ourselves an attractive winter scene.

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