March Garden & Stained Glass

Got a surprise yesterday morning. I was treating the bees with powered sugar for varrora mites and all the sudden the female Mallard duck landed in the pond in a big huff. She was having a small fit, but I could not watch because I was in the beehive. A little recent history on the Mallards. They have been dropping in on the pond for about 2 months. About 2 weeks ago the male would be seen most every day first thing in the morning. The female I assumed she had been killed or something. Meg thought perhaps she was nesting. Yesterdays appearance of her has us believing they are nesting, likely under the blackberry thicket at the ponds edge.

 'Painted Doubles' Winter Jewels Helleborus hybrid from Terra Nova

Here is one of those $8 locally purchased double hellebores I bought last fall. The first bloom was a bust, this one is wow..... I showed this to a friend who has a stunning hellebore garden and apologized for not getting her some of these at a steal for $8, her only double cost $25 years ago. I took some photos of her garden today, I hope to show them to you one of these days.

 Helleborus X 'Gold Finch'

The above photo was taken and posted a few weeks ago. I realized that this was not a hellebore baby I brought home. Instead it was purchased at Pine Knot Farms in 2010,  our first  bloom in the garden, I thought this plant had died off. Notice how yellow it is, the back side shows it even more. When I bought it, expected it to have small yellow blooms, not huge 4 inch blooms, needless to say I'm delighted.

On Sunday we are removing the cold frame covers, getting too warm so it is time. Below is a harvest from today. The English Breakfast radishes  and salad greens were planted in late January, this is our first harvest from them.  The carrots were planted in the fall, so yummy.  The spinach is also from last fall, yet the new spinach is just as big, but has not been harvested yet.

I'm hoping to take the trailer tomorrow and get rid of some construction debris and bring back a yard of compost for the garden. Just maybe I'll get the new hellebores and other plants planted on Sunday.

 OK, here it is our first stained glass projects! The upper one is Meg's, I was very impressed with her soldering on this. My project is below, not finished my soldering yet, the blue glass is cobalt blue, this photo does not show it very well. I have a lot to learn about shooting stained glass photos.

 My next stained glass project going to be a little harder, it has 155 pieces, it'll be pink ladies slippers and will be around 16" x 22". I bought some beautiful glass for the flowers and leaves, not yet decided on the background glass yet.

Speaking of bigger projects. Today I met with my designer/architect buddy and his client. Looks like I'll be starting on this pretty soon. The main posts are 8 x 8s, the post next to the oak tree, the roots have lifted the deck about 2-3 inches. We are going to tear this down and replace it , currently it is 12' x 28'. The new deck will be the same size with a roof built into it and another 12' x 28' deck under it, with a U shaped stairway down to the lower deck. We are looking into custom iron railing.  The underside of the deck will have a white ceiling and two ceiling fans.

Will you look at that grade, I'll be one tired puppy with bringing down all the material for this down that hillside. The 8 x 8s are going to be re purposed as steps in the landscape.

One last item. My neighbor down the hill from me informed me today that a local bee keeper has agreed to bring over 10 beehives to his place. He'll get to learn about the bees and get some honey in return. From the bee club meeting the other night we were told that our area could support around 15 hives + - to a yard. So all within 300 yards of each other, he'll have 10 hives, I'll soon have 2 hives and neighbor unknown last checked had 2 live hives and one dead hive. So this should make close to as many hives as the landscape will support. I am excited about him getting all those hives and working together with learning about bees.