February 25, 2011
The picture is of a farm that can be seen through the woods of John's mom's property in Door County.
Its been awhile since I wrote and I am sorry that I've been so lazy. But here's a story about gardening around the resort. I was inspired recently by a magazine about spring gardening that I had purchased. It really got me in the mood to do some more projects around the resort. I am really starting to miss home and we will be here in Door County until the end of April.
When I first moved into the resort/lodge in Mercer, the major gardening had been done. Tom Schroeder, who lived with John at the time, was an avid gardener. He had a friend who ran a greenhouse about 20 minutes south of the resort. At the end of the summer season, he would get a huge discount on the perrenials there. So the garden around the main deck, by the side of the basketball court and a couple other places had all been planted already when I got there.
I had always wanted a garden for vegetables but had never had the time. I had worked full-time away from home most of my life to that point so this was my chance - or so I thought.
I dug out a small area in front of the living room and guest room windows and planted seedlings. Even after a very warm summer, they grew up thin and spindly. It turns out that there were too many pine trees and therefore too much shade. This was even though it faced south and west.
My mom has all green thumbs (tee hee) so she helped me by bringing me some shade tolerant flowers. We planted them in front of the deck. Then, when we had a young helper one Saturday, he mowed them all over. After that I said I would mow that area. So now you all know why that area in front of the deck is hardly ever mowed.
Our neighbor, Harry Meinel, who a lot of people know from our pot luck dinners, has a green thumb too. He gave us a bunch of lupine seeds one year and said to just throw them around and lupine flowers would come up. He didn't tell me until much later that I was supposed to throw them where they would get sun. We don't have areas of much sun, so they didn't come up after one year. So he gave me some more and I threw them where there is a little sun. So far they have bloomed a little, but are not naturalizing too much because the sun is so little in that area.
I had a clematis that was growing great one year and it was going to grow up onto the main deck and all over that. It had covered about 4 square feet of area on the deck that year and next year I was hopeful that it would cover a lot more. Late that fall we went on a vacation and left my dad watching the resort and our dogs. When I got home, all the clematis vines and plant were raked out and burned with the leaves. My dad was only trying to help but I was sad.
On our trip we had gone to Bouchard Gardens in Victoria, British Columbia. I bought seeds there of shasta daisies. They are now growing where the clematis was in front of the deck and a weed vine is taking over where the clematis was too.
Now as you may know we have a large bell by our deck that we ring for pot lucks, large fish, or scary tornado coming - get in the basement. That bell is a favorite place for birds to sit and poop. They have generously seeded the area below the bell with blackberry bushes. Have you ever tried to eradicate those? Its nearly impossible. I've tried 2 years in a row by ripping out the bushes by the roots. They have still grown back. Yikes.
So I have high hopes this year that I will be able to get rid of those. I will dig up the entire area, take the dirt in a wheelbarrow and put it all behind the new cabin. There is only gravel back there so that would be an improvement. That way we can still pick the blackberries and raspberries and they won't be in everybody's way.
With all the shade we have, we are very limited to the amount of flowers we can grow. One year I spent many months watering bulbs I had planted in dirt containers in the basement. They were dahlias. Later I had one beautiful one growing in the old cast iron kettle that is down by the beach. It was as large as a plate and beautiful. Along came some non-customer and they VERY rudely picked the dahlia right off the stem and took it with them. How rude was that? I just can't win. I could see the flower in the lady's hand as they took off from the boat landing in their boat. I could have cried.
So if you wonder why there aren't a lot of flowers or landscaped areas at the resort, just remember that I'm trying. I'm really trying.
