Malus Purple Prince Picea abies Reflexa Freeze Damage Hosta

Gardening in recent years has become a battle between mother nature and those gardeners dedicated enough not to give up. Between droughts, summer weather during Winter which enabled most of our plants to leaf out and mother nature dared to tease us and take it back. My garden has been hit a lot, fortunately not everything but with some things only time will tell.

Malus Purple Prince - Crabapple had a beautiful blooming season. Very early as with everything else, but I got to see a couple weeks of the beautiful flowers before a hard freeze took out so much here in this area as well as across the country.

The Peony tree blooms earlier than my regular Peony and has a couple blooms started. Since the freeze hit so hard here, I am not sure if these will open or not.

Just a few of my Hosta coming up here, way too early. Quite a number of my Hosta have been severly affected by the freeze. I haven't decided if I will cut them to the ground and let them completely leaf out again or just cut off the freeze damaged leaves. Since it's either all of the Hosta affected or the greatest part of them, I probably will cut the affected ones completely down. Several of these that were up this much were some of the affected ones.

This Bloomerang Lilac had just started opening her blooms so am not sure if they will finish or not. I hope it didn't hurt it for any reblooming either.

Picea abies Reflexa. This is a weeper so the height is totally controlled to how tall I want it. Since electric lines are above, I couldn't have anything really tall. Well all I can say is that I am glad a lot still hadn't bloomed or leafed out and that I have some conifers to look at. That Solomon's Seal coming up on each side of the Viburnum in back with a Painted Fern in front of those. The Ferns were affected by the freeze. I hope things improve here and around the country for this gardening season.

Heather and Heath Sedum House and Garage Renovation

The renovation is completed. Unfortunately I still have a lot of work to do cleaning and going through things. When I originally bought this house many years ago, the garage had already been converted into one big room. Short time later I changed it to two rooms. The time came for it to go back to a garage.

Thought I would start off with the welcome planter which welcomes you at my front door, shown with Sedum Blue Spruce.

The Heather Hill. We had so little snow this year, not that I am complaining but this shows the largest amount that fell here this year. My favorite garden during the Winter. It's so nice to pull in the driveway and see this lovely area during the dreary months. I've ordered a few new Heathers to fill in this a little more towards the front area and they will be going in soon.

This is the old family room and den after demolition. Forgive the spotting, even my camera had drywall dust on the lens that I didn't realize at the time. Before starting the project but after special ordering 3 new entry doors, I called Ablaze Home Improvement and said I could not live without atleast a small space at the end of the garage for a small mudroom/office/grooming room. That's when this became a renovation and no longer a project. This is the mess tearing out the walls that separated this into 2 rooms. I also realized that the stuff I had moved out into this room hoping to work around was a problem. That evening I moved all that out under my semi-enclosed patio.

This meant closing up the current doorway opening in the dining room to the garage and opening a new doorway at the end of this area of the dining room which would be into the new office and then the entry door to the garage from there. We tore out the drywall on both of these dining room walls also since they were papered before and the drywall really needed replaced, and added wall insulation with the new walls. The backdoor you see out to the patio was also replaced and storm door at the same time.

It was a lot of work from what you saw above, but here is the dining room with new drywall, new paint and new doorway opening and trim to the office.

Closer view into the new office. It's not real big and since it's mostly for me grooming Yorkies in, it works well for me. The door to the garage is immediately to the left here. There is beadboard on three walls and the new wall with the door is painted.

The interior of my new garage. Two of the walls I left the paneling on and painted the new wall separating the office. My garage floor is ceramic tiled though and apparently not a problem with my car on it. Thankfully I won't have the demolition of that also being tore out. :)

My new garage door. I liked this design and the grooves very much fit the pattern with my new plank entry doors. It's so nice to go out and just hit a button for the garage, drive off without cleaning off car windows and was past time for me to look ahead at what I can do as I've been doing with my gardens and changing over to a lot of shrubs.

This renovation required me to take out my wood burning stove which then required repairing the roof where the venting went through it. There just wasn't room for it in the little office, but I hated having to let go of my alternate heat source. We had to remove the light fixtures in both rooms and add 2 new ones in different locations. New flooring in the office also since what I had didn't work for the size of the room. Now the big problem I'm dealing with is 2 rooms of things to get rid of. I'm currently preparing for a huge garage sale. Hard to let go of so many things, but times change.

Heather Hill Winter Blooming Heath in Ohio

Some of the different winter blooming Heather, either in full bloom or opening up their lovely blooms now. It's been a busy last month and will be for another so I didn't get a little more updated photos as some of these are blooming more since taking the photos.

Kramer's Rote. It always catches my eye when I pull in my driveway. The petal coloration is gorgeous and it literally covers itself in blooms. One of my favorites.

Vivelli and it definitely fits that name. Not only throws up pretty blooms but has this gorgeous reddish orange colored foliage all winter. One of my shorter growing Heathers.

Mediterranean White. The foliage stays more compact and the flowers are white and have since covered a much larger area .

Irish Treasure is a lovely bloomer that is planted next to Kramer's Rote and they very much compliment each other.

Goldrush is one of my taller ones, maybe around 18 inches and a little more golden than shows but nothing compared to Golden Starlet below and is just starting to throw up some blooms.

Mary Helen is just starting to bloom. It's winter foliage is bronze in color. Not a favorite but it does look nicer than appears in the photo.

Arthur Johnson is another one that gets about 18 inches high. It's just starting to bloom and produces soft pink color.

Jack Brummage is another one that blooms are lovely but the orange winter foliage is wonderful and it adds a lot of color to the winter garden.

Furzey is a beautiful Heather. Lavender blooms that are really lovely and unfortunately the photo just doesn't show how lovely.

>

Spring Cottage is one of my very short ones and always winters like a trooper. The blooms are just starting on this one.

Golden Starlet is one of my very favorites. The blooms here are white and this is one of my low growers, but it's value for me lies with the beautiful gold foliage which remains all year.

Myretown Ruby is a lovely small Heather that has beautiful magenta flowers that are close to the foliage and makes the foliage look colored.

Heather and Heaths add so much to the garden year round, but it can be a little difficult to grow. I think it's mainly finding the right variety for each individual area you want to grow it in.