Beautiful week

Minnesota Landscape Arboretum

Not only did I get a couple of days to work in the garden this week, but Mike and I also got to take a trip to the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum! We spent all day walking around, looking at all kinds of plants. It is such a wonderful place, and things are so well labeled, which is really helpful! The trip refreshed our vision for the gardens around our home. We didn't go with a strict plan to get ideas for specific projects, but it was so relaxing to just let our minds casually fill with plant inspiration that would work in our similar growing zone. Some of the highlight plants for me: 

 

red charm peony

weeping Norway spruce

 

 

In fact, looking at them here, these all look great together, so I could just put them all in the same garden. If only I could go back multiple times through the season to get ideas as new things bloom!

One really exciting part of this time of year, for Mike especially, is the emergence of the fruit! He is getting baby fruits on some of his trees, although there are some deer and pests to contend with as previous years. It seems that all of nature- the bugs, the birds, the deer, us- are fighting over the same little fruits. I did ask Mike to go out and buy another Honeycrisp apple tree, since his apples have been struggling and have been eaten off by deer. I also asked him to fence off the new trees, because we're wasting so much time growing trees just to have them mown down by the wildlife. A few pics from our walk around the garden this evening:

peaches, about the size of olives

strawberry just starting to pink up! the rest are still green or just flowers

blueberries!

We are also loving my early June perennial garden, as usual, since it is planted to peak this time of year. I plan to continue to do work on it, always dividing things and adding new things, taking out losers (I'm looking at you, butterfly bush) and any who just seem misplaced. Some other projects we've done:

•  added cardboard to keep down the weeds in that island bed that you see in the background below,
• planted my fancy new crabapple (like, I ordered it online from a nursery to make sure I got one that had most of the attributes I found desirable, so I consider that fancy!)
• once again laying out the bed lines for the front garden bed on the other side of the deck, which will incorporate a landscape containing the new crabapple

 My perennial bed:

looking out the window

another view out of the window, this one looking down the drive

purples and pinks in synchronized bloom

Do me a favor and picture it with different siding, maybe dark grey or a rich golden brown. See, it looks like a cute little cottage now!

these white irises finally bloomed!

Today I worked on the beds around the back deck. There's not too much to see, because the perennials aren't yet blooming, since it's planted more as a summer garden, and what I planted today was either tiny seedlings or just seeds. I'd post the pics, but they're on Mike's phone, and he is now snoring loudly over the baby monitor...

I guess that means it's time to go dream about new landscaping projects! Good night!