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Friday, March 19, 2010

Winter Melts Away! A Garden Walkabout!

This was what Flower Hill Farm looked like two days ago. . . with the warm days this snow may be all gone today!! Snow falls from the metal roofs and becomes mountainous in front of the house and barn.

Walking through the little Crabapple Orchard on the north side of barn.
Out of the orchard looking back at the barn studio and house.
Still on the north side of Flower Hill Farm looking southeast. This slope is filled with invasive bittersweet and sumac I battle each year... I am trying to get it to be only wildflowers but would love to plant native low fruit bearing shrubs for the wildlife. 
Walking down towards the wild looking over between White and Gray Birch towards Native Black Cherry and Apples in the distance.
There is a great amount of movement on the ground . . . Robins dot the landscape happy for the bare earth.
Hellebores are stirring and today I would guess I will have flowers standing up!
The sky is filled with movement too . . .  alive with calls and songs! I love looking for the V flying high, when I hear Canadian Geese calling out. Spring is a time of welcomed migration and exciting change.
Zooming in . . .  each little goose silhouette brings to mind various movements in Japanese calligraphy.
Now I am leading you over to Flower Hill's south side. We are standing in the lower garden and above the Blueberry fields looking out over Walnut and Carey Hill.
Looking the other way and up towards another Apple, Rock Maple and the house.
Moving out into the south field we get a larger view of the eastern hills and the Tree Swallows house! They will be back soon!!
We take a few more steps into the field and look more left facing east and the 'Bonsai Apple' Nate and I will be pruning later. We also see the Weeping Cherry and two other Apples along with the Gray Birches.
Many a year I climbed and pruned this old Apple this way, but now I leave it to my neighbor Nate.
This tree was let go for too many years . . . Nate is casting out the old suckers that were near small tree sizes! We have more to do but you can see it is much better already. Thanks too to my friend Brian's hard work last year!
You can see from the earlier picture of this view (Three photos above) that we are nearly finished with pruning the old mohawk hairdo! We will finish the job on Saturday and then move on to many more!
Here we are working on another old Apple tree. What glorious days we are having!!
Even 'Old Bob' is glad to see the snow melted away! This was a brief walk along the edges of the gardens . . . I am so happy to see all the snow melting and to have a working monitor so I can see what I am doing here. This is my offering for Blooming Friday to see other gardens with more blooms visit Katarina's Roses and Stuff! Happy Gardening Everyone!!