Gardens at Coppertop

I’m back after another nice, long, restorative break from posting. This week I wrestled with WordPress.com, attempting to find a simple, garden-friendly format for these posts. I may have lost that battle, but I’m still here!

Coppertop gardens have come alive this past month. Although spring bulbs are now waning, it was a great year for their blooms. I reigned in my desire to purchase tulip quantities and kept it simple with deck pots. Their whites, oranges, and purples brought much joy.

Instead of massive amounts of tulips, we added new daffodil varieties around the grounds last fall, including Sir Winston Churchill and Bella Estrella, and were rewarded for our efforts.

The greenhouse was overflowing last week with close to one thousand plant starts, including a huge number of tomatoes. I donated about half of the starts to our county’s Master Gardener plant sale, held last Saturday. We raised over $20,000 for community educational purposes! Best sale yet. Now the greenhouse is going through an identity crisis. 😉

The orchard is in full bloom, and this week’s warm temperatures have the bees buzzing and doing their mighty work. I’m eager to see how much growth our newer dwarf varieties of apples, peaches, plums, and cherries put on this year.

May is a beautiful time for Brunnera macrophylla, and we continue to enjoy this shady border.

At the end of February and beginning of March, we added nine new chicks to our flock. Along with our favorite breeds of Golden Comet and Ameraucana, this year we are raising Blue Cuckoo Marans and Silver Laced Sussex (a variety hailing from the Czech Republic!). They’ve all already moved in with the big hens and are quickly learning the pecking order.