The Secret Garden - Chapter One

Jeremy and I both love the story of the Secret Garden. We keep telling people now that we feel like we've moved into the Secret Garden!

Mysterious plants have been springing up for the last month or so. I find that if I don't carefully comb over the yard every other day or so, I'll suddenly see some flower or 2 foot tall stalk of something that I'm sure wasn't there before. We've also added to our collection because a neighbor a few houses up has been very generous with her extra plants, handing over a couple dozen irises, a phlox, and some others.

As I mentioned earlier, we have a ton of raspberries and blackberries. A lot of those plants were dead stalks so we cut those back and that really made the yard look a lot cleaner. The berries are starting to flower no, so hopefully there will be fruit on the way!

I've had a couple people come over to help me identify what on earth we have, so, here's what we have (so far):

This is a Shooting Star, one of the first flowers that came up in the yard.


Rhubarb of course. This picture is from 3 weeks ago and these are much bigger now. We've also found rhubarb in two other spots in the yard.


Violets. We have tons of these, in purple, white, and in between.




This is one of our many trees, a Mountain Ash. We also have a Kitalpa, Ginkgo, Birches, and some we don't know the name of.


And the cherry tree of course. This is from three weeks ago when it was just starting to bloom. It has since bloomed, the petals have fallen, and fruit is growing everywhere!


These are the only tulips that came up this year. The others got rolled over when we moved the chicken coop in and they never recovered. They'll be back next year.


This is a glorious big Bleeding Heart in the front yard. We have two or three others on the side yard.


Ah, Creeping Charlie. I used to hear about this stuff, everyone hates it around here it seems. But I'd never seen it until we moved to this house. It is everywhere. And frankly, I really like it! It's a better ground cover than grass (which has to be mowed), it transplants beautifully (doesn't even bat an eyelash) and looks nice. So I'm not tearing it up and swearing at it, like most people around here.


Strawberries! I just discovered these last week hiding out in some other plants at the base of one of our Gingkos. I've seen lots of blooms, so perhaps we'll get some berries. But maybe not - I think they're wild.


This beauty is a Phlox. I've discovered there are a lot of varieties - we have at least three. This one is on a stem about 8-12 inches high.


This is another Phlox that popped up recently. It's on a stem (more like stalk) about 2+ feet high.


This is a Wild Geranium. We have several in the yard, but this is the only one to bloom so far, just on Monday.


This is our lovely patch of ferns. We actually have two varieties but I can't get a good shot of the others. I only include this because I didn't think ferns grew around here (it being so hot in the summer and cold in the winter) but they grow quite well here.


And lastly, this unknown guy. It just bloomed a day or two ago and I can't remember what it is. Goat's Beard? Astilbe? Something else? Anyone out there know?


That's it for now. Amazingly, there are way more! But I'm waiting for things to bloom before posting pictures. It won't be too long before there is another whole crop of blooming things. So exciting!