Learning as we go...

It was fun reading your guesses as to what this plant was. The closest person was Sonja thinking it was a potato as it is something edible. It is buckwheat (Dutch ~ boekweit/Fagopyrum esculentum) and is now starting to spread. There are a few more little plants coming up. Jos thinks perhaps it blew seed from a farmer's field as we have no idea otherwise how it ended up in the garden this year. Hard to think that this plant gives us the grain used to make yummy pancake batter.


And to think that I almost pulled it out but decided this year to leave anything growing there to see what wildflowers would appear. I will show more of our wildflowers another time.


We are still working on planting up the various areas of the garden which is a bit hit and miss for us. We pretty much have to try things out and hope for the best. Some plants work perfectly while others need moving around a bit and still others just don't work at all. It is amazing that even some shadow loving plants still won't work in this wooded garden. We learn as we go or perhaps I should say as we grow.


The terrace area by the cottage itself had been planned to look symmetrical with a butterfly bush at each corner. Last year, we planted the second one as the first had done so well. This year they would have both been the same size but the first one has died and we have had to replace it with a new one. I now have to wait with my fingers crossed that they will next year both do well. We also had two clematis growing on one side of the rose arbor and wisteria on the other side. One of the clematis did very well and gave us some pretty blossoms already in its first year while the other has dried up in the heat and died.


One thing that we are having success with is Astilbas. We have them in three areas of the garden and they are doing so well that we bought these pretty red~pink ones also.


Up to now, the place we bought them from has had only white ones for sale. We found the other color at a private growers home. We do try to support these private sellers buying from them and have found the plants are really good quality too.


Do you remember the poppy field I showed you last year? It was the second year this amazing and beautiful crop was being grown.


This year the same field looks like this...


It is now potatoes in bloom. It took me a while to get used to missing that pretty field of poppies but then again...potatoes in bloom are pretty too. The most often seen rotation crop in this area is lilies. I think we will probably start seeing them again often in the next year or so. It is fun to see the changes the farmer's make to the same field year after year.