Final Report Completed and Plant List

 We finished our final report on the garden today and will submit to the Cheshire County Conservation District.  Overall this grant process has not been difficult and it makes you think about what you are doing before you do it.  For a little planning an paperwork, we now have a beautiful pollinator garden.  More pictures to come when the weather is nicer.  For now, here's a list of the plants that we put into the garden.

List of Plants in Garden:

Foxglove Beardtongue - Penstemon digitalis

Purple Coneflower - Echinacea purpurea

Blue Wild Indigo - Baptisia australis

Wild Columbine - Aquilegia canadensis

Rose Milkweed - Asclepias incarnata

Purple Bergamot - Monarda media

Blanket Flower - Gaillardia aristata

Anise Hyssop -Agastache foeniculum

Scarlet Bee Balm - Monarda didyma

Spotted Bee Balm - Monarda punctata

Northern Blazing Star - Liatris scariosa

Showy Goldenrod - Solidago speciosa

Black Eyed Susan (Rudbeckia fulgida)

New Jersey Tea Plant (Ceanothus)

Mountian Laurel (Kalmia latifolia)

Arrowwood Viburnam (Viburnam dentatum)

Ninebark - Little Devil

Finishing the Planting

 

After checking the garden over, we decided we needed one more shrub, so we went to Agway and purchased a Little Diablo Ninebark. It was the perfect finishing touch.

We also added another ½ yard of mulch as it seemed skimpy in a few places.  The garden seems to be finished for right now.  We will have to wait to see if anything else is needed.  Now it’s time to water until the plants are established and watch for weeds.  It’s so beautiful and peaceful, it’s hard to believe that our yard was just dirt last year.

Mulch Day

 

Mulch day – we started early so that we would be finished before it got too hot.  1 ½ yards of mulch later we had spread the mulch around the plants leaving nice pockets to hold water around each plant.  We thought we were done but wanted to think about it so we watered the mulch in and then sat back to enjoy our hard work.

Next, we decided to move our bird bath into the garden.  We had ordered a solar fountain for the bird bath to squirt water into the air from Amazon and that came today so we set that into the bird bath.  We have a titmouse nest in our forested area and they came over to check out the bird bath/fountain.

We’ve had a few Sulfur butterflies and some bees as well today.

Day 2 of Getting the Plants - Layout and Planting

 

What a day!  We went to Garden in the Woods to get the shrubs that we needed for the garden from the Native Plant Trust.  They were out of some of the shrubs we wanted.  We did get the NJ Tea bushes, but the others they didn’t have.  We asked for some assistance and they suggested a Viburnum that wasn’t one of the ones we had researched.  When we got home we found that the 2 we got grow to be much larger than the ones that we wanted (8-12’ instead for 3-5’).  When we got home we unloaded the shrubs and gave them a good drink as they were very dry.  We took a break and then  decided to lay out the plants where we wanted them so we could plant them in the morning.  We had 2 Swallowtail Butterflies swooping around the plants before we were finished.  After dinner, we wanted to get the plants in the ground so went out and with the help of our daughter planted all the plants.  The last 15 or so we planted by flashlight!  Then we watered them in before we went to bed.

Day 1 of Getting our Plants

 

We picked up the perennials today from Bagley Pond Perennials.  They are beautiful.  We had to make a couple of substitutions due to availability, but the plants look great and the new plants should work well with our plan.  We substituted Purple Bergamot for the Native Bergamot and Spotted Bee Balm for the Boneset.  It was good that I had been in contact with Denise and Amanda at Bagley Pond because they were working to fill several large orders and we would have missed out if I hadn’t been working with them.

Tomorrow we go to Garden in the Woods to get the shrubs for the back and then Thursday we start planting.

Bed Preparation Completion

 

The soil is being delivered today we have added several yards of soil to bring the bed up to where it needs to be.  Bob and I are spreading them early in the morning as it gets rather hot in the afternoon.  Our site is mostly sunny all day as it has a southwest exposure.  We are waiting to hear from Bagley Pond Perennials about whether Monday or Tuesday would be best to get most of our plants.  We have made an appointment at Garden in the Woods for Wednesday to get the shrubs that we are planning to put in the back of the garden (NJ Tea and Sweet Pepperbush).  We’re very excited to begin to see our planning taking shape. 

Bed Preparation

 

The grant leaders came for a site visit today.  We weren’t sure what to expect.   Amanda, Wendy, Mike and Amy were very helpful and pleasant as well as being very knowledgeable about soils, plants shrubs and trees.  Our site right at this moment, is a sand pile left over from building our house last year that we surrounded with left over rocks from our foundation excavation.

We reviewed the plant list and they suggested possibly making 2 substitutions.  The Rose Milkweed and the Boneset plants like wetter soil than what we have, so they suggested we think about changing them  for plants that like drier soil.  The soil in Swanzey, where we live, is very sandy.  We will add more top soil and mix it in to improve the soil so they get a better start.

We also discussed the use of weed block cloth for the garden (there seems to be some controversy both for/against it)  and we have decided to not use weed block.  We will use natural cedar mulch instead.

Next we Contacted Bagley Pond Perennials in Warner NH.  The said that they will set aside the plants that we want so that they will be available when our site is ready.

Then we set up an appointment at Garden in the Woods to get the shrubs that we want for the garden.

We had a good discussion on plants that were already in the wooded area; Golden Alexander (Zizia aurea) , 3 Leaved Rattlesnake Root (Nabolus trifolatus), Hairy Solomon’s Seal ( Polygonatum pubescens) and Pagoda Dogwood (Cornus alternifolia).