We aren’t into having a lot of flower gardens or landscaping that needs to be tended.  We’re too busy with the vegetable garden, the fruit trees, the chickens and the bees.  But we did need something to hide an unsightly hillside just off the back patio, and a little perky color in the springtime would be a nice sight to banish the cold and snow.

We recycled some old railroad ties that we found in the lower pasture and cobbled together a bit of a retaining wall (let’s just hope it continues to “retain”), filled it in with some bags of soil and planted four Forsythia bushes.  My Dad hated Forsythia bushes, not that he hated spring flowers, but he hated the way the bushes spread every year.  I think it will be good that they spread, in fact, a hedge of these bushes would be great!