Year in Review – 2018

As promised, here is the latest edition of a Year in Review which will hopefully answer some of the questions I’ve been getting like “Why would you leave so soon after you just finished that garden?” and “What did you do with your roses?” and “Are you totally INSANE?” Yes, to the last one. Well, at least at times it felt like we had completely lost our marbles. Hang on, if you’re new here you may be seriously confused right now which is understandable considering I started this blog at a garden in Pennsylvania (from 2010-2015) and then we moved to North Carolina where I have been blogging for the past 3 years, and now, we’re back in Pennsylvania again for the above reason of insanity. But for reals, here are some past posts about the subject to give you some background:

● News! Hedgerow Rose is Moving!

● Our New Garden

● 6 Month Progress Report

● A Year in Review, Part 1

● A Year in Review, Part 2

● A Wedding, A Relocation, A Garden in Bloom

Phew! OK, now that we’re up to speed, let’s journey back in time to spring, 2018. We had just come out of what was a very cold winter by North Carolina standards and were heading into our fourth spring at this home with most of the interiors renovated and the garden designed and planted.

M A R C H

Right now, if you asked me what I miss most about our NC home, it might be the weather, because I’m currently freezing my a** off here in PA. It was so much milder in Laurel Park, our home just south of Asheville, with far fewer ice-cold temps in winter allowing Camellias to flower in February and Daffodils in early March. Last spring, without any intentions, yet, of leaving the area, Jesse and I had two massive Poplar trees removed which completely opened up the yard. We also set out to clear a slope on our property that had so much potential but was currently covered in invasive vines and shrubs . It was grueling work but by the time we were finished, we were so pleased at how much more space we had reclaimed. It had a lovely view up there of the rest of the garden and I had big plans for replanting the hillside with some native trees and shrubs. But that never happened…

A P R I L

By April, the tulips were in full flush and the skies were still bluebird blue. The clouds hadn’t begun their deluge which wouldn’t begin until May. All was sunshine and fresh spring breezes. We introduced two new packages of bees to our hives with some calculated changes on how we managed them. These small alterations made such a difference in their health that summer I was shocked at the difference from this year vs last. Beekeepers or those who are Bee Curious, here’s what we did differently:

● We purchased “treatment free” locally adapted bees

● We sold our Langstroth hives and kept only the Warré

● We did not feed them sugar water. We had saved honey and comb from the previous year that they started on

● We removed the screened bottom boards and replaced with a solid board. This also reduced their entrance size. HUGE difference in their behavior, folks. If you are having problems with your bees building comb in the bottom box of your Warré hives, try switching to solid bottom boards. We also had far less issues with small hive beetles and no longer had to worry about pollen loss when bees were re entering the hive.

● We treated for Varroa with a soft treatment in August (Hopguard). Worth mentioning we used ApiLife Var at first and they reacted terribly and we lost a queen in one of the hives because of it. Once that was removed we waited a little bit to let them recover and then used the Hopguard which was so much more pleasant to work with and didn’t bother them a bit.

As I said, the bees did amazingly well, but something I would change in future is replacing the traditional frameless bars of the Warré hives with framed bars. Frameless bars made it very difficult to inspect and although I think conventional beekeeping has keepers getting into their hives way too frequently, I would have liked to have checked in there a bit more. I would have also installed robbing screens much, much sooner which you’ll see why when you get to the bit in September.

M A Y

April, May & June were our busiest months in the garden and the turning points for some major changes: First, we had our daughter’s wedding, then helping her with her move back up to Pennsylvania, next there was my talk for the Master Gardeners on Old Garden Roses, then our Annual Plant Sale where I also managed to bring some roses that I had propagated the previous year, followed by our Annual Rose Exhibition with my talk on Sustainable Roses and capping off with a talk on Propagating Roses for my rose society.

By the end of May, our daughter had left and the sky seemed to match our moods. The storm clouds moved in unleashing torrents of rain…and it didn’t stop all summer.

J U N E

In June, we brought home two new gals to add to our family of hens: Nutmeg (a Welsummer) and Ginger (a Buff Orpington.) We had learned a lot with Maple, Cocoa and Bonbon in regard to keeping chickens in the garden comfortably so with Chickens 2.0 the transition went a lot smoother. I’m currently writing a post about this in hopes it encourages more people to let their chickens be free to roam their gardens. I am also officially a crazy chicken lady and wish I could have dozens more. They make me so happy!!

The poppies and hollyhocks looked amazing and were feeding the bees valuable pollen for weeks on end. (If you grow one thing from seed in 2019, make it poppies.) Sitting in the garden surrounded by buzzing bees and flowers it was tough to imagine that there were some major challenges on the horizon. But in short course the voles made their presence known and it was devastating. Important to note that I’m talking about voles not moles. Moles are considered beneficial and want nothing to do with your plants. They are tunneling for grubs and worms and such. It can be a nuisance having those tunnels in your garden and lawn but please don’t kill them! OK, so voles, I have talked about this already HERE but in 2018 it seemed like it got completely out of hand. I already lost countless perennials but when the roses started getting picked off one by one, I needed to act. If they weren’t too established, the roses were dug up and potted, sometimes barely in the nick of time. I managed to save quite a few of them this way. Many would argue that planting in wire cages would solve the vole problem. This may work for smaller gardens but I had hundreds of plants spread across an acre–not feasible. I did learn a lot though, which I’d like to share here:

● I never had a vole problem in my earlier PA gardens. I think this was due to a few factors: One, I was always gardening in suburban neighborhoods with wandering cats. In NC, we were in the deep woods and I never let our cats outside. Two, the soil in NC was incredibly loose and sandy vs the heavy clay soil in PA. We also had a problem with Asian Jumping Worms in our NC garden which further loosened up the soil. This was perfect tunneling material for voles. Three, I was feeding the birds and my chickens in the garden and the voles were probably collecting remaining seeds which only encouraged a population boom. Four, the garden basically sprung up out of nowhere very suddenly with a veritable smorgasbord of tasty delights for little nibbling rodents. They were probably inviting all their little mousy friends from neighboring counties to join them in the feast.

● If you are having vole problems here are some things that you can do: We mentioned earlier planting in cages. This works if you don’t have a lot of things you’re trying to plant. Another option, besides going whole-hog with a container garden, is to plant your shrubs (including roses) in their pots and place directly in the ground until they are well established. You can also intersperse the tasty plants with plants they typically don’t like to eat such as: Lavender, Hellebores, Iris, plants in the mint family like Salvias and bulbs like Daffodils. It’s worth mentioning that I was always under the impression that voles didn’t like Alliums but they ate the heck out of mine. So, moral of the story is, experiment.

J U L Y 

With the thoughts of leaving North Carolina weighing heavily on our minds, I made a trip to Pennsylvania for a family reunion. The visit gave me some valuable time to meet with a real estate agent while also seeing just how I felt about moving “back home.” Was it time? The answer was a resounding yes.

After we decided to leave, Jesse and I put the pedal to the metal to finish the kitchen remodel–the last thing on our renovations list–so we could put our house on the market.

This is as good a time as any to talk about the roses. Fortunately I was able to bring many of my roses with me. Remember, I hadn’t been in this house for very long so the roses, which I mainly purchase as bands were still in the nurturing and growing-on phase. Since a lot of them were still quite small, it wasn’t too difficult to prep them for a safe move and those I couldn’t squeeze onto the truck were given to friends or left behind for the new owner. Of the mature roses that were left in the garden, I took cuttings where I could and some I’ll simply have to repurchase. But since I have been getting asked a lot “which roses couldn’t you live without?” I’ll give you a list of some of my favorites from our time in NC:

● Any of the rugosas (with exception of Pink Grootendorst) are worth growing again. I particularly became enamored with Belle Poitevine and Dagmar Hastrup

● Really, any of the OGR’s that I brought with me from my old PA garden would be worth growing again such as: Mme Hardy, Mme Plantier, Celsiana, Tuscany Superb, Henri Martin, to name a few

● Modern roses such as Dark Desire, Earth Angel, Italian Ice, Pomponella, The Generous Gardener, James Galway, Munstead Wood, Lyda Rose, Cornelia, Ghislaine de Féligonde, Ivor’s Rose, Plum Perfect and Apricot Candy

● I was grateful that the species roses I had begun collecting such as R hugonis, R virginiana, R spinosissima, R moyesii, R rubrifolia were still small enough to bring with us

A U G U S T

After 2-3 months of solid rainfall, the garden looked pretty terrible. Some of the roses, the ones more susceptible to disease, were completely defoliated. The dahlia tubers, the ones that hadn’t been eaten by voles, rotted away. The perennials that hadn’t been properly staked (that one’s on me) were laying flat. The fact that I knew we were going to be leaving meant that I didn’t bother replacing anything that I dug up or cut back and the rest were sitting in ugly plastic containers. Not the prettiest sight.

That’s OK, though, because most of our time was spent indoors, anyways. It was pouring rain and we had last minute things to do to get the house prepped and listed.

Following only a couple of hours of our house being on the market, offers were pouring in. This was equally terrifying and exciting. We certainly didn’t expect it all to move so quickly and we didn’t even have a house in PA yet. So many potential buyers were commenting on the niceness of the garden which really fluffed my tail feathers but also was a bittersweet reminder I was no longer going to be it’s caretaker.

S E P T E M B E R

With a closing date set, we continued our hunt for a home in PA. We packed up most of our NC home and Jesse drove it all up to PA to put into storage. This “1st move” would make the final and more difficult move with all the pets less complicated but it also meant we were living without everything but some clothes and a few kitchen things for about 6 weeks.

The bees: I was a total dummy because I didn’t install robbing screens (some keepers leave them on year round) soon enough and my two hives started robbing each other. Nothing I did to deter them made a lick of difference. This was a total fail on my part but I didn’t lose either of the hives, thankfully.

We finished off September with the annual Biltmore Rose Trials weekend. It was the perfect way to cap the end of our times in NC while also giving me an opportunity to say goodbye to some dear friends. I will continue as a judge for the trials but of course I won’t be a “permanent” juror since I am no longer living in the area.

In September, I also got a chance to do something that has been a wish of mine for longer than I can remember: have a hands-on falconry lesson! I think it was one of the best experiences I’ve ever had, seriously. Jesse and I are still talking about it. If you live in the Asheville area, you must look up Curtis Wright Falconry.

O C T O B E R

The imminent move suddenly felt very real when a couple of beekeepers from our local society came by one evening to collect our bees. With the robbing having occurred only a week or so before they were collected, they were in rough shape. I felt terrible about handing over two weak-ish hives but also knew they would be in good hands. I cried and cried and cried over the departure of my beautiful bee friends, not gonna lie. The garden felt so empty without them. I felt a loss–feel a loss–on such a deep level, it’s difficult to even explain. Is it primal? Have you seen this article by the NYT? Anyways, I do hope to keep bees again here in PA but we’re living in a much more neighborhood-y location, so, careful consideration will be needed.

4am, October 15, I woke up the chickens and placed them in their travel cages so they could sit next to Jesse in the cab of the moving truck. In the dark, we moved through the sleeping garden bringing out the last of our things. The cats were put in their travel kennels and placed in the backseat of our car, the dog in the front seat next to me with all her pillows and toys. We left our keys on the kitchen counter, said a sad, final goodbye to the cottage and garden that had been our home and the focus of all our dreams for the past 3 and a half years, made one last drive down the mountain and left North Carolina.

Why Did We Move?

A lot of people have commented to me that they can’t believe we left when we finally got the garden (and house) in our North Carolina home looking so nice. And, believe me, in a lot of ways it was not easy to leave. The thing is, we knew it was time to go; we felt out of place down there right from the start and that feeling never went away even though we threw ourselves into volunteer work, clubs, community events and met so many nice people. After our daughter left and Jesse’s job no longer required him to reside in the southeast we started really questioning the rationale behind staying.

And there was a lot going on behind the scenes: there was my bad car accident only weeks after we arrived, there were major changes (yes, plural) in Jesse’s position within his company, there was the nightmare that was renovating a home while we lived in it with everything requiring way more work and expense than we anticipated, and then there was just, LIFE. Because life keeps happening even when you just need everything to chill out for a moment, please.

All that being said, I don’t regret for a second that we took the leap of faith and moved to the Asheville area. So much good came out of it and we learned so much we felt like the 3.5 years spent there was like a master class and a boot camp all rolled into one. So, we’re exhausted, and truthfully probably suffering some PTSD from all the stuff we’ve gone through over the past few years, but we’re happy we went and happy to be back.

What’s Next?

First of all, can I just say how strange it is that I’m still writing this blog? Every day I have the passing thought to call it quits: The upkeep is expensive, the writing is time consuming, who is even reading this, I’m such a boring writer, and so on. But for some reason, I’m still here, and now that I’ve got another new garden to create, I think I’ll try sticking it out a little longer. In fact, I might have TWO new gardens to create because we are currently at the top of a waiting list for an allotment in town with which I can finally grow veg again. But let’s talk about our home garden first: This new garden is the polar opposite of our last in NC: We are not in the woods but in a traditional suburban neighborhood. It’s not 1 acre but barely 10,000 square feet. It doesn’t have terrain with little hills and paths, it’s one relatively flat, open back yard. The chickens all made it here safe and sound but are currently in a temporarily fenced off area and being housed in an old shed that we’re working very quickly to make more comfortable for them if it would just stop snowing. Our first plan is to encircle the yard with a fence to let them wander more freely and give us some privacy. Then, lay down the pea gravel and mark out the borders. From there, I guess we’ll all find out together! As always, thanks for being here. xo