The  beauty and scope of the plants up north continue to amaze us, and sometimes surprise us.  Wide swaths of woodland ferns, wildflowers, ground cover, wild strawberries, wild roses, you name it.  But no hope for a structured garden – unless that is how we want to spend all our time up there, which we don’t.

Last year I set up two raised bed gardens as our year 1 test garden.  I was so unprepared for the results.  The asclepias and the asparagus seem to have survived.  Beyond that, let’s just say I wish I had that money back.  I cannot keep pace with all the things that continually take over that space.  And I have learned that is not bad.  It’s just different.

The wildflowers are happily blooming right now.  Here’s a truly delightful clump of wild daisies – right next to the “delightful” crop of woodland plants that continually take up residence in the raised bed gardens.

The daylily seedlings I planted in spring do not seem to have survived, but perhaps next year I will be surprised.  The iris I planted did survive, so maybe.  But I am not optimistic.

Two new wildflowers to us right now are orange hawkweed, and spreading dogbane.  Here’s a picture of the spreading dogbane.  

It smells glorious, and the bees love it!  We just need to keep our dog away from it.

Final consensus for this year – I’m done “planting” up north.  We’ll continue to see what’s already there, and see what comes up next year.