All the plants that have arrived are planted.
4 baby pine trees:
3 of them are Acrocona Norway Spruce (a dwarf variety that will only reach about 15ft, and has red pine cones) and they’ve been planted as the start to a privacy screen across the front of the yard. They grow about a foot a year so although they’re only 1ft tall now it won’t take them long to start being effective.
The fourth is a Korean Fir. Should reach about 50ft, and is one of the bluer varieties, to the point of having blue pine cones. It went in the front corner next to the driveway. We took down a pair of arborvitaes from about the same spot. The big difference in location is that the fir is about 6 feet further into the yard so as to avoid the power lines above. The arborvitaes have already had their tops cut off once because they were planted directly under the wires. I understand WHY, they were an effective screen to block the view of the house across from the driveway, but still badly placed, and frankly not pretty in the winter when the green leaves turn brown. Again the fir will take a few years to start being effective, but is less likely to impact the wires.
3 different types of berry canes:
3 canes of the Apache blackberry, a thornless variety
3 canes of a traditional raspberry
3 canes of a golden raspberry.
3 Northern Blueberry plants
3 rubarb plants
All in the ground and sprouting. Still to come are two Pink Lemonade blueberry plants, and 3 jalapeno plants, all of which should be arriving shortly as I got a shipping notice on Friday. I’d wanted to do more, but decided to take it easy the first year. None of the berry plants are likely to produce their first year which made it imperitive to me to get them into the ground this year, especialy since I expect to have to fight for my share of the berries they produce!
Next year we hope to put in a couple more lilac bushes (there’s already a few in the landscaping), and some butterfly bushes, all in the front run to add to the privacy screen. And would like to put in some tulips (ok, they’ll hopefully be this fall not next year), and some other flowers in odd spots, though the former owners did a nice job on the flowers in the landscaping. We also want do some sweet bell peppers as well as the hots, as well as some other odds and ends in a bigger garden, and (probly overly ambitious here) possibly even some corn (sweet, and popcorn varieties).
There’s still lots to do. There’s a battered and dying old pine in the other front corner that frankly is more dead than alive at this point. It needs to come down before it blows down on the wires. We’re thinking we might replace it with a Japanese red maple, and there’s a few more arborvitaes scattered around the yard. I really don’t LIKE them at all and they’ll all come down too eventually, to be replaced by something else.
And I still have to get up some basic fencing around the garden area, I read somewhere that fishing line will deter deer as they won’t jump over something they can’t see. I intend to give it a try anyway.