Oak Hill Drive

Our now fifteen year old home sits on "Oak Hill." Here, surrounded by magnificent white and burr oaks, I had to give up my sunny gardens. We had divided our property, selling our old house in the open, and building a new one in the adjacent woods. The wooded areas have been gradually converted to shady wildflower gardens. They are now my gardening pride and joy. Still, there was one area I wasn't quite sure what to do with. It was a six foot, east facing bank, on the edge of the woods. Leading down to the ditch along the road, it was a maze of gooseberry bushes, burdock and uncounted weeds. It couldn't be mowed, yet offered a half a day of sunshine. What to do?

 I decided to try and give it a "prairie look" and hoped the morning sunshine would be adequate. In the fall of 2007, I cut back the gooseberries and prickly ash.. Then, that fall, the bank got burned. I had already purchased some native wildflower seeds from Prairie Moon, a local wildflower specialist. Raking the ground, then scattering and tamping the seeds, I hoped the spring melt wouldn't wash them all into the ditch. We had lots of snow that winter.

There was no way for me to tell that spring as to what came up. I couldn't identify the weeds from the flowers. So I waited till the maze reached about 6-8 inches in June and then weed whacked everything down to about 3 inches. Now my precious wildflowers would have a fighting chance. The bulbs I had planted, of course, bloomed that first spring. The rest would have to wait at least another year before blooming.... if they survived!

Two years later, the summer of 2009, purple coneflowers, and woodland phlox made their first appearance.

August 2011: the brown eyed susans put in a not very modest appearance.

The summer of 2015 has seen a cascade of changing color.

Now in the early October the  “ditch bank” the fall asters have joined the show. The smooth asters with their sky blue look and the deep purple of the New England ones dominate the show. The latter with remain blooming till the snow arrives…..

 

Look close. The bumblebees love the asters too!

What fun!  And the neighbors all toot their horns and wave as they come and go.