A fun and productive weekend

We had a busy weekend at our cottage. Originally, we had planned to finish the last of our ideas for the side garden. We got up and had breakfast out on the terrace. It was nice to sit outside and have breakfast with the birdsong. I brouwsed through a couple of magazines as we lingered over a cup of cafe au lait.

As we were getting ready to go to the garden center, I looked at the area we were planning to add a pergola. We had missed the last two weekends at the cottage since we were on vacation. It was very evident as I looked at the side garden that it needed nothing more added to it! It has grown so much more this year and looks fine as it now is. We will simply add a little spot to sit among the flowers and this part is finished.

Instead, we turned out attention to two other areas. There will be a fencing to replace the row of conifers along the back edge of the garden. This borders onto the drive of the next cottage and not only do we need to order the items needed to create this natural fencing we would like to build but we also want to let our neighbors know what we are doing. We told them last year that we planned to change it but want to let them know it will be happening now.

The area in the photo is the side of our garden which backs right out into the woods. I love this view and can sit on the terrace and stare out at the trees for hours. We find all the grass we have in the garden very boring. When we first bought the cottage it was all grass, even the driveway. We dug up all the grass on the side of the house to create that winding walk you see (photo two) with flower borders on both sides. We have also extended our terrace which was very tiny and planted little areas around the corners to soften it. Now we decided to plant up an area looking out into the woods.

I marked out the area and Jos started with the hard work of removing all the grass sod and then turning the ground. It was quite a job as we had very high humidity and tempertures on Saturday. We were not able to finish it all this weekend but here are the results so far:

There will be the same tree branches lining the border as we used in the other borders and we also have to lay out the bark on the soil. I need another plant as I have a hole left near the feeder and we will pick up something at the garden center this coming weekend. So far I am really pleased with how it has turned out. Here is a list of the plants we have used for this border:

• Hydrangea paniculata 'Grandiflora' (PeeGee)
• Monarda 'Cambridge Scarlet' (bergamot or bee balm)
• Hosta 'Gold Standard'
• Rodgersia aesculifolia (fingerleaf Rodgersia)
• Astilbe 'Deutschland'
• Heuchera micrantha 'Palace Purple' (Coral bells)
• Summer heather 'Calluna'
• Houttuynia cordata 'Chameleon'
• Indigo blue 'Forget~me~nots'

I will share a photo of the finished border next week.

I let this wilt a bit before I got the photo taken but this is for my friend Diane. What better thing to remind us the beauties of fall will return than seeing this acorn sprouting into an oak? I thought of you Diane when Jos brought me this to see. He had to pull it as it came up in the front of a flower border. There are so many acorns that sprouted this year! We had tons of acorns fall from the oak trees right as you go into the woods and now that entrance has a carpet of tiny oak trees.