Perennial Bed/Fake Hugelkultur Update

This was the front of the perennial bed last year, after weeding, adding wood and composted manure around mostly established plants.

  

This year, same bed, so far.  It's been badly neglected this spring, but I am working on it.

 I am mulching with bark and wood chips from the basement floor as I get things weeded again.  Weeds are still easy to pull in the beds, and getting easier in some spots.

The asparagus in this bed is much thicker this year and providing us with regular treats- not quite enough for a meal, but definitely getting there.  The lupins are getting ready to flower.  There's a patch of pennyroyal that survived the winter, no sign of the thyme yet.

Jacob's Ladder seems well established, about to flower after the long winter.

Rhubarb is coming along nicely.  It must be double the size of last year, and I think it tastes sweeter this year.  Almost ready for the second picking.

Speedwell well established, spreading and flowering already.

This grassy looking plant- I think it was here before I arrived- is flowering this year.  No idea what it is.


Canadian Columbine is well established.  This is a northern native plant, transplanted from the woods.

It's flowering between the branches of the forsythia.  The nearly dead forsythia.  Not that it's really dead, but 6 years or better without pruning has not done it any favours.  I think there were only two branches that flowered this spring, and the centre of the bush is dry and brittle.  I'll be pruning it back significantly this year.

Another surprise.  What is this?  I think it must be a native plant.  It's growing alongside the columbine, where I had transplanted another native plant that didn't survive.  I think the root or seed must have been in that soil.  It's cute, whatever it is.

And behind it, a strawberry.  Probably a wild woodland strawberry (small, sweet berries), but it seems happy here.


A bit of branch got buried under last year's compost and seems to have taken root.  A new bush is coming up just a foot away from the old one.  I'm undecided yet whether to leave it there, try to move it, or remove it.

Still lots to weed, mulch and discover.  I bought a few herbs at the nursery that will be going in.  None of my perennial seedlings that I started this year have survived to be transplanted.  Some strange looking plants are growing in the side bed where I added seed last year.  I haven't found my notes or attempted to identify them yet.