I know, I'm sad too. Hydrangeas are one of my favorite flowers. Years ago I bought every hydrangea I could find at an end of the year clearance sale. Each one a different variety although some were missing tags. All in 3 gallon pots, scraggly, ugly, half-dead but for $5 each I was willing to take a chance. They were originally $45! Turns out, they were a great buy. They all recovered beautifully. I look forward to their blooms and Jason's beautiful bouquets each year.

The large leaf varieties seem to have taken the hardest hit. Of the hydrangea shown below, we trimmed all of the dead wood out of the top two but they are not likely to bloom. The bottom two are planted behind our house in sheltered beds. Both had live and dead wood. I'm keeping my fingers crossed they will blossom!

Not all of our hydrangeas suffered. We have a spreading variety that is doing exceptionally well. It is covered in buds and honey bees! ​Our limelight hydrangea is also doing well and starting to bloom. Limelights are known to be extremely cold hardy. The jury is still out if our 3 hydrangea trees will bloom.

Luckily, Mother Nature has a way of making up for garden disappointments. It may not be a stellar year for hydrangea but our spring tulips and peony were absolutely spectacular. Check out our tulip blog posts on May 19th and May 21st then click through the slideshow below to see how our garden is doing today.
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​Watching our gardens grow is one of the many perks of our job. Last week, we revisited the Chain O' Lakes project to plant annuals, mow, weed & mulch. The bed installed last summer is filling in nicely. We can't wait to see it bloom.

This summer we will be installing (3) new wildflower beds - two beds lakeside & one in the side yard. Last year we covered these areas with black plastic to kill the grass & weeds. All that's left to do is till the soil & sow the seeds. ​​

​​We'll be using Midwest Mix from Vermont Wildflower Farm. This mix contains 26 different wildflowers native to our region. It includes 13 annuals for 1st year color, 4 bi-annuals & 8 perennials with early, mid & late bloom times. ​Also on our to-do list, create a new lakeside perennial bed inside of an old row boat. How fun!

Hey Pillywiggins! How do your gardens grow? We're glad you asked. We share a lot of project photos but that's just the beginning of a great garden. What about the end result? Where's that Pillywiggin magic? We get it. It's not always easy to imagine how a bed will fill in. Unfortunately, we haven't been able to perfect our Pilly-Vision Garden Goggles yet. So, we revisited two of our favorite landscape projects two years after install to snap a few photos. Take a look at these before & after shots then try to imagine what 1 Pillywiggin + 2 year's time can do for your landscape!

In our last blog post "Elk Rapids Chamber Project" we talked about reusing the spoils whenever possible. The Petoskey Project had many examples of recycling spoils. We split, relocated & reused most of the existing plants and used the old landscape block to build a new retaining wall at the back of the homeowner's property. To revisit this project under construction click the links below.

• Rocking & Rolling Boulders
• Rock On!
• Block Party!
• Petoskey Project Complete!
• Petoskey Patio Project #2