Yarden Evolution: Our White Picket Fence

Bear here...

The next stop on the Yarden Evolution is our white picket fence area in the front yard (fortunately Theresa edited this post and told me it's not spelled "picked" fence).
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Theresa said she wanted a house with a white picket fence (although she insists she said no such thing). My mind went back to the movie "It's a Wonderful Life." Anybody remember the gated yards and the nice, waist-high white picket fences around it that one could chat over with ones neighbors? In reality, we no got gate and the fence is a little short (about knee high), but that's OK, we like it. Theresa says that since our house is so close to the public sidewalk, she wanted a small fence because it makes a good psychic barrier. I'm not sure what she means by that.

Below is our starter picture of the same front yard space in 2005. The first year we were doing a lot of indoor work, so we just put down some railroad ties to separate the yard from the driveway.

The next two pictures are from 2006. Theresa wanted to have a garden to attract bees and butterflies. We also wanted it be good looking so hopefully the neighbors would forgive some of the things we knew they wouldn't like as much that we'd be doing in the backyard.

Don't that next pic from 2008 look nice? The stone path is a decorative spiral that let us walk in amongst the plants for watering. 

Eventually the plants filled in, and buried the spiral path, but the garden still looked cool. Every year some plants would be the same and others would change. See the blue plant (Theresa says it's a delphinium), that was there in 2013?

Fast forward to 2016. We didn't plant anything different, but the delphinium bloomed in two shades of blue and some of the flowers are white. These were my favorite flowers for a while because they seemed to attract several bumble bees that I would watch from my car when I got home from work. Around 2019 they died off and I kinda miss them... Theresa has tried replanting others (she says it was amazing that I actually noticed that a plant was gone) but nothing new has survived.

But we still have lots of other things that are good bee attractors (and I don't mean me in the shorts).  The pink flowers feed the bees in the early spring and summer (Theresa says those are purple coneflower/echinacea)...

... see , told ya... bee food...

The asters feed the bees in the fall. They also tend to go past the fence, but that's ok, because I have counted over 10 bumble bees at a time on them.

Can you see the bumble? (Below) This shot goes to show you our fence also needs a little maintenance. Over the years Theresa has touched it up and repainted it a few times. She told me many times, but who's counting since she did the work?

For the last three years the big summer attractor has been the New Jersey Tea bush. (White flowers pictured below.) I've photographed bumbles, other bees, and cool black wasps feeding on it, but those pics are for a Small World Life post.

Hope you liked the history of this garden area. It's amazing for us to revisit the early pictures when the garden looked bare. Keep in mind that Theresa pretty much only planted one of each type of plant, but if you're patient, over the years they spread, and you too could end up with a garden bursting with flowers.

When I figure out what's next I'll type at ya.

Later,
​Bear