Masters of the Domain

In some past posts, we have featured photos of forsythia - the bright yellow bush that is currently in its flowering season. It is especially prevalent out in the Shenandoah Valley, so much so that I thought it was a native plant until I did my research: http://www.cas.vanderbilt.edu/bioimages/species/frame/fovi.htm . Most varieties are native to Asia, although one species is native to Albania/Kosovo.



Still, we are seeing the plant just about everywhere we go in Page County - large plantings that form hedges, clumps that have gone wild and form large yellow clouds along the roadside, and even little flashes of colors peeking out from the edge of the woods, as with this small "wild" plant growing at the back of our lot.





Mary had spied some nice forsythia plants at Home Depot recently, and so that became our weekend project - we drove down to Harrisonburg (from now on: H-burg) to the Home Depot and bought three, with the idea that we could use them to take back a part of the yard that is now overgrown with ivy. Here is the planting after we finished it on Sunday afternoon.



The soil here is clay, as it is in most of Virginia, including Alexandria. We added some organic material to help the plants get off to a good start, and then mulched over the area to help kill off the ivy. These plants will hide the little scrap wood pile there as it decays; there is also a small wild rhododendron right there with them.



Also, we planted some seeds for summer color: cone flowers, cosmos, zinnias, rudebeckias, and hyacinth bean. We're keeping our fingers crossed the deer will leave them alone long enough that we will see some flowers here and there.