Here Come the Squash!
I noticed my squash plants are starting to show the signs of baby squash! How exciting.
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What to do with an abundance of rocks
Everywhere we dig in our gardens reveal rocks by the dozens.
I used to cast them aside and there are still many piles along the edges of the woods to attest to this. About 4 years ago, we decided to start using the rocks for walls to contain our gardens.
We have a severely sloped front hillside out by the road and we have used mountains of rocks to terrace it. It’s such hard work, we only finished a third of it the first year.
This year we started working on the right side of the front hillside, this is what it looked like in April when we started.
This is it’s current state, we still have a lot of work to do, but it looks better than it did last summer!
We also have used rock walls to edge our driveway.
Now finding a rock while digging is like finding a treasure, and we are constantly using the piles along the edges of the woods that were made during our first 2 summers here. We now have rock walls all around the property and rocks edge almost every flower bed we have. Plants always look so lovely cascading over a wall of rocks. 
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To The Rescue
I always feel a bit guilty when shopping for plants at a big home improvement store, I feel like they are the puppy mills of plants. I usually end up buying the poor plants on the back display that are past their prime and have been marked down 75%. Usually they’re a little brown and crispy, but they’ll perk up when attended to. Last night, while at our big home improvement store, I found a few great plants for 75 cents each.
I bought 5 East Friesland Hybrid Sages and 5 May Night Salvia.
Plant information for East Friesland Hybrid Sage.
Plant information for May Night Salvia.
I have many of these plants already in the front garden, so I know they do well here. They were also rescued 2 years ago from the back display of the same store! I plan on using them to fill in the front hillside that is currently a work in progress. Bees love both of these plants. May Night Salvia blooms early in the spring, it’s one of the first perennials to bloom in my garden.
The Sage blooms a little later and is equally loved by the bees. It also smells great when you brush up against it while weeding.
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New Plants
I planted 3 new plants today. All three of them are from Stepables. They have such great little plants! I have a few more varieties to plant, but I’ll just post the three I planted today. They are all chartreuse low-growing plants that are great for brightening up dark spots in your garden!
This Scotch moss has tiny white flower blooms (I’ll post one of those later). I planted this in an old birdbath and has a hole in it.
Here’s the information for Scotch Moss.
This small speedwell was planted at the base of the birdbath to brighten a little spot there.
Here’s the information for Golden Creeping Speedwell.
I also planted some Golden Creeping Jenny. I have heard it is invasive, but I planted it where I would love for it to take over, let’s hope it is!
Here’s the information for Creeping Jenny.
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New Cherry Tree
A while ago we decided to add a few fruit trees to our gardens. After much deliberation, we finally ordered a Montmorency Cherry Tree from the National Arbor Day Foundation. It’s scarcely 18 inches tall, but it has already grown 6 inches since we received it. It arrived a month ago while I was busy putting in and planting raised beds, so I planted it a large pot. Yesterday I finally got around to putting in it’s final place in the front flowerbed. I had to move a large catmint plant (was supposed to be a Walker’s Low, but it turned out to be a regular catmint). It looks tiny between the other 2 catmints but soon enough it will be tall and provide some shade for some lovely lady’s mantle underneath it. I can’t wait for the cherry pies!
