Wildwood Vineyards and Hayfield

We visited several nurseries in search of plants that would meet Dana's strict guidelines for our "Mound Garden II" which is replacing a small boggy lawn next to our patio. We were particularly interested in finding some Kniphofia 'Creamsicle' or dwarf poker plants. We planted three of them last year during "Mound Garden I" or the pool replacement phase, if you are interested. Here is Phase I almost finished.It doesn't help that Dana and I just adapted OilMan's sometimes free form pronunciations of things and got a lot of blank looks from people in the nurseries. We joke about "Dadspeak", which sometimes even family members are unable to translate.

Every time we go to the nursery, we come home with more plants than we wanted to plant, plants that were never part of the original carefully focussed plan, plants that ultimately die in our inhospitable soil, and others that surprise by flourishing. It's a crapshoot. Today was no exception as we came home with ten plants in addition to three Creamsicles, so while OilMan and Dana planted this latest haul, I walked down to the corner of our road to investigate the source of the loud woodchipper, which has been grinding away all day. I thought it was just a couple of doors down from us where they are doing a massive house/yard remodel, but it turned out to be around the corner and down the street at the end of the hayfield. Acoustics are odd around here.

I took this picture of the vineyards climbing the hills across the road from us, and are essentially our view from the kitchen window. There is starting to be a lot of talk about the wisdom of clearing woodland watersheds for more vineyards, and even more about the wineries which are building fancy tasting rooms and hosting more weddings, dinners, and and large events. 

These Wildwood Mountain vineyards, however, are just that. There is no winery at all over there, and no events and the grapes are no doubt sold to local wineries.