A Walk Around This Old Farm

Greetings from Wykeham Township, Minnesota. I haven't posted for several months, and the time has gotten away from me. I make excuses. Some might be just excuses like "I was too busy,"  and others might be real reasons like "is any of this even worth doing?" Anyway I have missed doing the posts and sharing some of my life here, so I'll make another attempt. I hope you are all doing well, and if you are having any misfortunes, I hope they can be managed as best you can, and hopefully go away completely.

Man, this has been one wet, weedy, hot, summer until now. In the last two weeks, I feel the weather has given us a respite to feel somewhat civilized for once. I must say, the summer has been good for flowers and the veg. It isn't the best, because I planted the veg very late, but at least things look healthy. Some of these photos are from the whole range of July. I am a fan of day lilies and hostas, so these pictures might be a little heavy on those. I like the coolness of hostas and arborvitae evergreen trees. These are in front of the house.

Here are some hostas and day lilies in a shade garden in front of the house. There is also a dark red Asiatic lily that I planted after bringing it to church a few Easters ago in memory of my Dad.

In the same garden are a lot of these "alba marginata" hostas, green with white edges. I like them and think they give a cool "northern" look to a shady area.

As the spruce trees get older, I find it necessary to trim them up from the bottom. I've been planting a lot of native ferns around them and here I put all-green hostas in front.

Here is another place by the garage where I've done this.

Over the last few years I've put in a lot of spirea shrubs and "Stella D'Oro" day lilies down by the meadow which was once the pasture for dairy cattle. These spirea are a Japanese spirea and I like the reddish-pink flowers. The more you trim them, the more they flower. The same with these small day lilies.

Here are a couple new hostas. They're next to a garlic-related plant that smells really good when you touch it. I guess that's a personal preference, because I like the smell of onion and garlic on my hands. 

Here are some more day lilies that I've been growing. Many are very old ones that my parents had at least 35 years ago.

The veg garden is coming along but much slower than others I've seen.

I keep geraniums year to year in the basement during the winter. They are still doing pretty well. Here they are on the porch and around the house.

Finally, here are a couple more photos of some of the work in the yard and by the old dairy barn.

So that's what I've been up to the past few months. Hope you are all o.k and enjoying the summer. All the best to you. 

Phil