“Celebrating Easter”
Heatherwood Lower Garden
Easter is a time of emergence and new life. Heatherwood welcomes Easter with its early spring burst of bulbs, trees blooming and leafing out, perennials popping out of the ground, and grass greening up. It is a celebration of life that nature and our Lord has given us.
“Neighbor’s Willow”
Heatherwood View
Our neighbor’s willow tree brightens my day. Most mornings while I am waiting for my early morning coffee to brew, I walk to our living room window and look over our garden and up the hillside above. This willow always draws my gaze. Even on a dreary early spring day, the tree’s brightness is a harbinger of a good day ahead. Thank You!
“Cherry Allee in Bloom”
Heatherwood Spring
I looked out my window this morning, and there was no snow falling . And, the forecast was for a series of gently increasing temperatures and no more snow. I was happy. A few moments later the snow started to fall again. I closed my eyes and said a couple of words under my breath. Then I said, “enough is enough!” I thought of a bright and sunny early spring day. So I am posting a scene from Heatherwood depicting my vision. Have a beautiful day!
“Daffies in Snow”
Heatherwood Crabapple Grove
What is going on? A week ago it was beautiful spring weather. Spring buds were bursting open. This week it snowed. The snow melted, then it snowed again. It started to melt once more. Now the forecast is for more snow.
I think nature is trying to tell me that it is not time to plant yet. This crazy week has caused us to delay our spring planting for a week. It is hard to adjust the irrigation sprinkler system when the lines and drippers are covered with snow.
“Spring Snowfall and Cherry Blossoms”
Heatherwood Spring
Just when I was getting ready to go outside and work in the garden, the skies darkened and this funny white stuff started to fall again. This time it was with big snowflakes. Is it spring or is it winter? This flash of winter-like weather has many orchardists in our area very worried. It is occurring at a time when the new buds are emerging. They are cautiously checking for any frost damage potential to this year’s crop. More snow and below freezing is forecast for the balance of the week. I am considering delaying the start date for my spring planting for a week or so.
“Spring Snow Dusting on Daffodils”
Heatherwood Spring
My plans for the day were to get down on my hands and knees and adjust our irrigation sprinklers. Surprise, not today! The snow is scheduled to turn to rain this afternoon. Maybe tomorrow we will be able to work on the sprinklers. Our plants for our spring project arrive on Friday. We hope to start planting next Monday!
“Serviceberry and Daffodils”
Heatherwood Spring
At this time of year, it is hard to keep up with all the emerging new blooms and leaves. As the blooms of the weeping cherries are receding, the flowers of the serviceberries are emerging. The serviceberry blooms are relatively short-lived. Bees are already hovering all over them. Soon small berries will develop. I must pay close attention if I want to capture an image of them. They only last a few days because birds quickly gobble them up.
“Daffies and Yellow Twig”
Heatherwood Woodland Garden
It is easy to become focused on looking up at all the trees when walking through a woodland. However, there is so much interest looking down at the ground level as well. We are trying to replicate this in our Heatherwood garden. We have planted about 25 various trees in our woodland garden area. Tall-growing standard maples and birches will provide the basic shade for the understory redbuds, dogwoods, and Japanese maples. We are now gradually filling in the middle and ground tier of vegetation. For the mid-tier we have yellow and red twig dogwoods, various viburnums, winterberries, buckthorns, beauty berries, ornamental grasses, barberries, and other shrubs. This year we hope to add a few hardy rhododendrons. For ground-level interest we currently have only a few spring bulbs. This year we will add Oregon grape and other low growing plants in addition to more bulbs.
“Redbud Getting Ready to Burst”
Heatherwood Woodland Garden
The buds on our Redbud trees are almost ready to burst out in bloom. I walk down almost every day to check their progress. Any day now they will be covered with pink and magenta blossoms. When they do, the woodland garden will come to life. I love spring!!!
“Woodland Garden in Early Spring”
Heatherwood
Yesterday was a beautiful spring day. I took the opportunity to walk around our woodland garden area with my camera. My focus was to try to capture the feeling of various sections of the garden in the early spring before the majority of the trees were in bloom or leafed out. I also was attempting to create a baseline perspective of the garden prior to the additional planned plantings for this year.
When I first moved to Selah in 2016, this area was part of a pasture. The only trees were the birches in the left background. The next year, I added a small grove of October Glory maples next to the birches. The following year I planted the area in grass and added underground irrigation. In 2020, we started converting the area into a woodland garden theme, removing grass and adding red buds, a couple of dogwoods, and a few evergreens. Last year we continued to add standard maples, Japanese maples, several deciduous shrubs, and grasses to the area. This year, our plan is to add more understory deciduous shrubs and ground covers to frame in the pathway through the area. In the fall if we have the energy, we plan to add several more spring bulbs. This area will continue to be a “works in progress.” It will continuously be in a state of change as the trees grow and create more shade. The understory shrubs will transition from sun loving to filtered shade tolerant species. We will patiently enjoy watching it mature and change over time.