~*~*~*~*BIRTHDAY SALE*~*~*~*~

I'm having a Birthday Sale in my Aromatherapy and Natural Remedies Shop.

Click {HERE} to enter the shop.  Enter 2017BDAY15 at checkout for

15% off your $10 minimum purchase.  Coupon code expires Saturday, June 17, 2017

The Great Wisteria Project

June 9, 2017

When we bought our house 4 years ago, we "inherited" this beautiful wisteria.  It was a bit overgrown and the area around it was very bland with weeds and struggling rose bushes.  Well, more like rose twigs.  It needed lots of help, but we were busy with other projects.  The summer we moved in, we were busy painting the interior, laying new flooring and settling in.  The following Spring, we were building our raised garden beds and tending to our new veggie garden.  The Spring after that, we were building the chicken coop and tending to the new chickies.  Needless to say, the wisteria bed area was not a top priority.  By Winter 2015-2016, I was tired of looking at the scraggly mess from the dining room windows.  See that photo below?  It was not a pretty sight! 

March 2016

We set out on a dry warmish Spring day to give the wisteria a really good hair cut.  Every bit of vine that was hanging down from the arbor was cut off.  Then anything dead that would break off from the tangled mess intertwined above, was pulled down.  Runners were pulled up from the ground and cut off at the base.  Then the entire area was raked as clean as we could make it.  And then it looked like the photo below.  Not bad for a March afternoon. 

March 2016 

A couple of weeks later, we started pulling up all of the landscaping fabric, mulch and weeds.  The area was topped with organic compost and then the new plantings began going in.  I salvaged the rose bushes that seemed to still have a little life in them- I ended up with 9.  For the new plantings, I decided on English Boxwood and Lavender.  There are also Hydrangea in the barrel pots.

June 2016

I alternated Boxwood and Lavender across the front and lined the walkway with just Boxwood.  The rose bushes are all planted on the right since that area gets more sun light.

The wisteria didn't take long at all to fill in and start blooming.  It seemed to be so much "happier" without all of the dead vines tangled up.

July 2016

Below is the growth progress from this year.  There are a lot of pictures (I apologize if it takes a while to load them).  I began taking daily pictures when the blooms began to open.  There were noticeable changes daily!  There are so many blooms this year and the scent- I wish I could bottle it.

May 10, 2017

May 22, 2017

May 23, 2017

May 24, 2017

May 25, 2017

May 26, 2017

May 27, 2017

May 28, 2017

May 29, 2017

May 31, 2017

June 5, 2017

June 9, 2017

Everything seems so happy and healthy growing here.  Below are pictures from around the area.

 Alternating boxwood and lavender

More of a close up- you can see a rose bush on the right

 Wisteria blossoms

View from under the arbor

Another view under the arbor

Geranium and new kitty ornament

Another geranium with the perennial bed in the background

These two lavender (there's another in the background) are a larger variety than

the lavender alternated with the boxwood.

The feeder where the birds, chipmunks and squirrels feast on sunflower seed

One of 2 sky pencils I added this year

The miniature rose is blooming.

The wisteria has really grown out again this year.  I imagine that next Spring, we'll need to prune it back again.  I'm pretty sure it's going to be a biennial chore to keep it in check.  I hope you enjoyed seeing all of those pictures and hopefully they didn't take long to load!