Squash House - Mid Spring 2015

Hello, and thanks for all the inquiries as to my whereabouts!  Since I am mostly on Instagram these days, I thought I would do a little Spring update for those of you who aren't.  Everything is great here at the Squash House.  Now that I've fully recovered from my back surgery, I find myself out in the gardens every chance I get.  I may have to dust the cobwebs off my sewing machine pretty soon!

 A couple of weeks ago we hosted my dear friend Stephanie from Rummage (formerly Loft Creations) for a week.  Stephanie and I had a great time visiting and exploring our little town. You might remember the backwards photo of us last year.

We even got the chance to cook a few meals together!  It sure was fun having a good friend to cook with!

 I so wanted the Dogwood blossoms to hang on for her arrival - and they cooperated quite nicely!

 Many of you have been asking about the garden, so I'll take you on a mid-Spring tour!  This is the first rose bloom which opened around the end of April!  We've had an incredible Spring so far with very little, if any, cloudy or rainy days.

This was the first perennial to bloom - it's a dwarf Anemone.

 The rest of the photos I took yesterday in the early morning.  Check out the bearded Iris!  All the buds haven't even opened.  You can see the grapes and blueberries in the background - both already loaded with fruit.  I have some basil seeds under the cloche in the half wine barrel - mostly to protect from the squirrels rather than keeping them warm!

 Looking the other way you might notice a strange tree just past the rhododendron.  Our ball shaped willow (along with many other plants) didn't make it through the winter thanks to a severe drop in temperature last November.  We bought a new, weeping willow as a replacement.  I'll try to post photos once it it fully leafed out.  As you can seem, a lot of perennials aren't even close to full size yet, but each day there is progress.

 Here we are looking back toward the house.  I love my new windmill!  

 The trellis here in the background held gourds last year.  This year I moved it and planted climbing, Black Eyed Susan's around.  They will climb up and over and cover the entire trellis in another month or two.

 Barbara, the purple Clematis is is full flower and the Alyssum under the roses will soon cover all the exposed dirt.

 I planted more Clematis on the short bit of chain link fence we have last year.  This year, they are really coming along.  Check out the Lupine, as well!

 We decided to move more to the fruit side of our little Squash House "Farm" and away from vegetables, except tomatoes and lettuce.  We can get all the fresh veggies we want at our Farmer's Market, and fruit is a little easier to manage as we get older.  This is our new, free -range, organic, sustainable, fair-traded, artisanal Strawberry patch!  (Can you tell we've been having some fun?).  Next year we should have many, many berries!

 My very special Diamantina Raymond Evison Clematis is in fully glory this spring!  Aren't these amazing blooms?

Bernard, the white Clematis with dinner-plate sized blooms is just getting started.  Soon you will barely be able to see the leaves for the blooms.

I will try to post another update early this summer.  If you can, do come see me on Instagram as mrssquash