From 11-4 on Sunday, we had a consistent flow of knowledgeable and interested persons coming through our yard during the Pennypack Garden and Farm Tour. A very positive day for us! I so enjoyed sharing and talking about what I love. As expected, I gained many useful ideas from the experienced and was challenged with questions to which I knew not the answers. I’ll get to work on them! I’m happy to say the bees were very well behaved and tolerated the unusual activity so near to their homestead. I did finish the pear tree guild schematic for the tour and want to publish it here. Feel free to ask questions or give feedback. Feel free to share this and plant this guild. Remember that it is experimental. Please, do not publish this as your own work.
Click on the image to see a larger version.
If you want to get a few more details on the plants, click on this link to get the file.
I was going to work on digging my swale today. I was dreaming about digging that swale! But, today, it rains. So, I will finish the more refined draft of the back and sideyard garden designs for a client. It will be a good day!
Wow, Michaelann, I love your design. The number of species you have in here is very exciting!
Hey, Malian! I want to start getting a good handle on propagation so that these plants (and many more) can be shared with lots of other gardeners and gardens. And, importantly, How does your coffee grow?? Be well!
What software are you using for the image in this post? I’m working on a design for my landscape and I am currently doing it on paper. Also if you could give an update on your pear tree guild I would really appreciate that.
Hi, Kevin! We no longer live in Elkins Park so I’m not adding updates on those gardens. We, now, live at http://www.StellaLouFarm.com. The new blog needs to be updated unfortunately. I used Sketchup (I believe there is still a free download-able version, though, it is no longer open source) to do the design and I just saved the image as a .jpg to put into the blog. When I left nearly 3 years ago, the pear trees were very healthy and growing strongly. My favorite plants were comfrey, new jersey tea, red veined dock, chives, korean mint (anise hyssop), aster, goumi, fennel, coneflower. and scorzonera. The poppy mallow worked pretty well on the slope by the sidewalk…very beautiful color and vigorous. It needed beating back now and again. The rose mallow was beautiful and healthy but needed staking. The wild strawberry was, indeed wild, tasty, and will take over if you don’t keep pushing it back. The ground raspberry did not make it. The sea kale grew nicely at first but then died. I think if I were to do it again…I would give the pear a bit more room but they did not seem to suffer. Take care!