June 6, 2016- Discoveries...the lost is found.

What a lovely/spectacular garden you have Lori , full of interest and interesting plants....not to mention the stream. Water makes an area so much more interesting.
I think you will find your Alchemelia Mollis (Lady's Mantle) will spread with no problem at all. They tend to seed everywhere and anywhere.
It must be very difficult to keep a track of all those lovely, unusual plants in such a big area, it's no wonder you lost some, temporarily.

love this blog, Lori..such fun going around with you, finding this and that..great pics..glad to see the old goat house..we had three goats on our small farm a few yrs back..great animals..brought back happy memories, thank you

It is so nice to see your garden in full spring mode. Like your road side bed with the spurge and ground elder, but I hope you realize what a terribly invasive plant that is. Maybe it isn't in Canada, here it is one of the most dreaded plants to discover in your garden.
Yes I've got ladys mantle, my first garden I have been able to grow it! and it's unstoppable, but easy to keep under control, beautiful plants, even better with the dew or raindrops sparkling on them. Love the pic of the baby oaks with the hosta underneath. Your mention of walnut and what grows..or not...rings a bell. In my old garden we planted 5 or 6 in the hedge. Of course nothing grew near them, always big gaps instead. I decided to take them all out and plant on their own as shade trees. All but one survived, I would love to see how that garden is maturing now, maybe this autumn!
Lots of rhubarb crumble in your house then? But no more goats...? I like their flowers but prefer to have the stalks.
Your grapevine story made me smile, love it when things like that happen out of the blue.

Its just amazing how those plants survive your very hard winters, even the self sown grape vine!! I think you have the most unusual garden of any of us.

Resi I'm with you about the rhubarb - we like the crumble with raisins mixed in, and an oat topping.

I love your space Lori. Perfect example how to live in harmony with nature. (With few twists).

Mmmmm.... yes. I just stewed a batch for winter! It's very tart to the taste and I shouldn't use sugar..but I can't eat it without it. just a mention, that when harvesting rhubarb, you should not put the leaves in the compost or feed them to any farm animals as they contain oxalates which, if I remember correctly, are toxic.

I have always wondered about that Lori, but after doing a bit of research on the internet, good old google eh, discovered that it breaks down well and the liquid can even be used as a fertilizer for fruit and veg plants much like nettle or comfy.

Well there you go! I should do my homework... :-) just because one source says it...you can't take it as gospel. That bit of lore goes back a ways... I think it came from my Mom or my Aunt....but I'm reasonably sure the not feeding it to animals is true.

Lori I reduce the tartness of rhubarb by adding a little bicarbonate of soda after cooking. It froths up alarmingly. You just stir it in gently, and it kills a lot of the acid so you need a lot less sweetening. I also often add raisins or sultanas, and they add sweetness too.

Now there's the perfect solution...elementary chemistry. I've used it before in home-made tomato soup, but why I never thought to use it on the rhubarb I'll never know. Thanks, Stera! Have you noticed that in prepared foods anything that's touted to be low in fat is automatically high in sugar...and anything that's low in sodium is usually high in sugar... can't have one without the other!

Nearly everything in supermarkets seems to be high in sugar - I notice because OH can't have it. Try finding a breakfast cereal -there are abut three he can have so he usually just has oats with some raisins.

My intro to using bicarbonate of soda was when my mother put tomato ketchup in some soup for some reason I forget, and too much came out of the bottle. Dad couldn't abide anything vinegary so she put bicarb in to kill it - I'll never forger the froth - and Dad said the soup was delicious. We never said a word...

That made me smile, Stera! My Dad had a sensitive stomach too... and my mom made tomato soup with tomatoes she had canned the previous summer, and Dad would complain about acidity... So she did the same thing! (and, you know, it does taste good!) Lots of people who diet think salads will help and they eat the good veggies but pile on the commercial salad dressing! before all the labelling laws we didn't have a clue what they were feeding us... I have to be careful of what I eat and I've found that it's easiest to go back to the old way... make oatmeal porridge, or semolina. I cook up a big batch on a Monday and it does me right through to Saturday breakfast. I can have a little maple syrup on it... or as you say, I just throw in some raisins and cut up a half banana. Yum!

I prefer my oats in muesli - never been able to stomach any sort of milk pudding for some reason and I feel a bit left out when I see people really enjoying porridge!

We never use salad dressing either - perhaps a little oil and vinegar very occasionally but usually salad is not dressed at all.
Its good to meet someone else who "does the chemistry"!

almost forgot to say thanks to Paul, Pat and Klahanie for your kind comments.
Paul: I have had 5-1/2 years to come to terms with gardening out here in the "hills". Madawaska is a very rugged and scenic township...lots of hills and rocks and white pines...pocket lakes..and loons. We've come to love it here. Learning the garden has been a bit of a process but things are finally looking better this year. (if a little sparse) time and time only!
Pat: My hub is worried that I'll buy some of the Pygora goats that I've been seeing on facebook. They are fibre animals and their fleeces have different properties depending on their lineages! fascinating. BUT...as I said before, Hub is worried that the first really cold winter night the goats will be in the kitchen! I'd have to put up some very high, very long fences and build a barn for wintering them... it's not going to happen..just a lovely dream. Nice to meet a fellow goat person.
Klahanie: Thanks for that, I really would love to live in harmony...and I try..but nature has its' own dissonance and it can be cruel. I enjoyed the pics of your plums in blossom... I wish I could find one hardy enough for this area. Vancouver Island is such a lovely place with a great climate. Would love to have one of your winters!
Resi: Yes the aegopodium is dreaded here too...but I've always used it in hard places and if it seemed to be taking over I thinned it with a vengeance! It seems it's in a battle for dominance in two of my beds where I included it... the front with spurge as it's adversary and the second with ajuga. I think I'll try it under the black walnut and see how it and creeping Jenny get along! ;-)

your weed experimenting made me smile, I did the same with bindweed on the steep banks in my old garden, nothing else took until I'd established a bit of a microclimate underneath their leaf covering, and even bindweed struggled! But it worked and I managed to eradicate it afterwards! I'll be following your weed wars with interest, my money is on the ground elder on all fronts! Although it might take it a bit longer than creeping jenny or ajuga.

I've found a use for underplanting since my sister and Amy sent me lots of hollyhock seeds. Hollyhock rust usually makes the plants look deformed and ugly because until I planted creeping jenny around them they were usually stripped of their basal leaves by the time the flowers started...UGLY to say the least. Then Jenny came on the scene..she's made a carpet of protective green between the soil and the rain... not as much (or almost nil) splash ..and no transference of the spores from the soil to the bottom of the basal leaves and WOW! my hollyhocks grew to great heights... and they still had their lower leaves. That's the first practical benefit. Looking forward to finding more... did I mention that the ajuga has decided to migrate into the grassy area around the stumpery! Hurrah! soon I won't have to cut grass!

Wow thats nothing less than miraculous lori, creeping jenny to stop rust! I've grown black hollyhock from seed, this is the second year so they should flower any time. No rust so far but give them time....! No lack of creeping jenny so will transplant tomorrow, they're easy enough to remove again. Thanks for that tip, now keeping fingers crossed.

I imagine that anything which would stop the splash back during a rain or watering would do the job just fine. I have toyed with the idea of using the plastic/sponge underlay that they use for clic-flooring... it's porous enough that some moisture would get through and the force of the drops would be absorbed by the underlay? I've not actually tried it yet...the hollyhocks seem to be happy with jenny. Hope it works for yours, too.

Go with nature, she will always win. You are certainly finding plants that enjoy your situation, as do I. No prima donnas there.

:-)Thanks Siris! .... no prima donnas! In a week, maybe, I will have some pics of the wild meadow rue, Thalictrum, that grows in profusion near the forest edge. It's totally natural...all I do is try to lessen the growth of hay around it! totally beautiful plant and she's no prima donna but she sure is lovely.