Looking Back

Sorry to be so quiet here on my garden blog. Like so much of the country, we've had bad winter weather already, and my garden has long since gone to sleep. And we all know how busy life can be during the holidays. So I thought I'd wrap up with the traditional "year in review" type post. Last January, there was a lot of nothing going on out in the yard. I had one lone flower to share, a petunia that I had managed to keep blooming for many months, on my kitchen windowsill.

 

In February, life in the garden began to slowly appear. A few bulbs peeked out, and the snow melted enough to see how pretty the Angelina sedum can be once the cold hits it. This is my absolute favorite winter interest plant. 

 

Now March is when the garden got down to business. The hellebores began to bloom, and the early bulbs popped out. It's enough to get a gardener all excited for the upcoming season! You might think the first bulbs would be crocus, but at my house, the first to appear is always iris reticulata.

 Ah, sweet April. This is when the bulbs came up all over the place. Daffodils, crocus, tulips, hyacinth, pansies, flowering trees, a gardener hardly knew where to look next. The weather softened, and it really started to feel like spring. 

 When May came along, it was time to get down to business in the garden. Time to plant! The best part of May is when the roses started to bloom. 

June is when everything really started to bloom. And it was all about the colors. Every flower in bloom seemed even more colorful than the one before. This past June is also when our new patio was installed, so we had some work to do getting it landscaped afterwards. Totally worth it! 

The main attractions this past July would be the appearance of the vegetables, the arrival of the butterflies, and the big blooming period for the summer annuals. 

August was the month we decided to build our tiered herb garden. All we had to go by was a picture, so it took a lot of thinking to figure out how to make it happen. We loved the results, and having herbs growing right outside the kitchen door was ever so handy. It didn't take long before these little plants grew and grew to fill the space. 

I'm pretty certain that I spent most of September dealing with my garden produce. There were lots and lots of pickles produced, and jars and jars of salsa to enjoy. This particular picture came from the day I made a lovely batch of gazpacho. I also chased countless butterflies around the yard, trying to get them to pose for me. Funny how they refused to cooperate. 

 There was still a lot of life to see in the October garden, but things quickly faded when frost threatened. The dahlias were so gorgeous this year, so one frosty night I gathered huge bouquets of them for vases all over the house. 

By November, the flowers were pretty much gone, taken down by frost. But the leaves were just as colorful as the flowers once were. 

And so we come back to December. It's been a very good year, in the garden, and otherwise. Thanks for visiting Life in Robin's Nest, and stay tuned for whatever 2014 may bring!