2021 Blooming Hill Events and Happenings

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Tuesday, July 14, 2015

Six More Should Do it.

Looking in on the bees, far out in the field.
It started innocently enough.  Of course, it always does when it comes to Peter pondering the addition of another garden bed out somewhere in the yard. Sometimes he gets a bee under his bonnet and he just can't let it go! One evening while we sat out on the back porch watching the rain fall--as it does almost every evening, lately--looking out on the gentle slope where six recently planted strips of new lavender plants looked, well, a little lonely.  They needed balancing out against the backdrop of evergreen needles and deciduous leaves that reach up into the Virginia sky, It was then when heard Peter mumble to himself, "Six more should do it." "Six more of what?" I asked. "Six more strips of lavender." He was still mumbling but I heard it loud and clear.

I think he just needed an excuse to borrow our neighbor's tractor, one last time.
Standing and planting in and around the newly filled-in sand trap.
So, gone is the ol' sandtrap and neatly clipped golf green, (think the Harry Hechinger commercial from years ago when there was a Hechinger's) that was meticulously kept at just one-half inch, while other parts of the yard would be kept at two inches and other parts of the yard were clipped to three and a half inches.  Still other parts of the yard were kept at 5 inches!--Dont' ask! Really, I gave up mowing long ago as it took a schematic of the entire yard to figure out what grass should be at what length.  Besides, I'm a much better weed wacker than he is.  However, I think that was engineered as well.  But, I digress...

It's getting curiouser and curiouser.
Now, instead of green grass and sand, there are two rows of Lavandula x intermedia 'Seal', two rows of Lavandula x intermedia 'Phenomenal', and two rows of Lavandula x intermedia 'Provence'to mirror the other side of Lavandula angustifolia 'Elizabeth', Lavandula angustifolia 'Buena Vista' and Lavandula angustifolia 'Mitcham Gray.'  Next year the hillside will be splendidly, dressed in the color purple and ribboned up in grassy green.  The mowing plan should be verrrrry iiiinteresting, I'm sure.

You can just see him sitting there thinking, "REALLY?"
Trying to figure out what all of the fuss is about.
The bees didn't seem surprised at all about yet even more lavender taking up residency here at Blooming Hill.  to them, it's the more the merrier.  
However, they wasted no time flitting from flower to leaf to bush to tree spreading the news that the Rinek's seem to have an addiction problem, of sorts. However, we prefer to think of it as a lavender collection.  The devil deer just sighed and flicked their ears at us but that wiley ol' fox who torments poor Tucker seemed slightly off balance himself, since we removed his beloved sand box far out in the field.

Twelve new rows of lavender plants added this year.  On the right, six added in May and on the left, six added just two weeks ago.  They will provide a very nice view, farther afield.
In any case, the slope looks great and you must come and see it for yourself. Going forward, we will be replacing much of the mowing with much more weeding and on the upside, much more harvesting of lovely lavender in the years to come.  As my mother used to say, "Six of one, half a dozen of the other."  Yep, six more should do it, just fine--for now.

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