our homestead: dreaming of a woodland garden

I'm already dreaming of the woodland garden we'll have at our new property. We have to build our home first, but I imagine come spring 2014, I'll get to start cultivating my own little magical piece of earth with native plants, shady blooms, walking trails, wood benches and stone steps. Perhaps a little mossy hobbit house for visiting nephews and nieces to hide in?

Photo credit: Claus Dalby

Photo credit: Wallace Gardens

Photo credit: MFAH

Photo credit: ngs

Photo credit: South Carolina Botanical Garden

Photo credit: Beautiful Portals

Photo credit: Forever in Bloom

Photo credit: Apartment Therapy

Photo credit: Trouvais

our homestead: a winter tour of our property

It was another cold, yet bright and blue-skyed day, and I was in the area, so I stopped by our property to explore its winter state. I walked down to the lake and noticed it was completely still as the water had been frozen over with a thin layer of ice. Then, I crunched through our frozen maple leaf coated property and was pleasantly surprised to find that while the dormant, leaf-less brush (mainly salmon berry) within the property was easier to walk and see through, the cedars and brush lining the perimeter of the property maintained winter privacy from our neighbors. I had planned on heading out here in the winter to see how the property could change in the winter months, and seeing that we still have a nice nature buffer, it will be easier to pick a building site for the home. Our 2.17 acre property is shaped like a fat "L" and we currently plan to build our house almost to the very back of the property, to maintain privacy from the road and to preserve the majority of the standing timber. Anyway, here's a slew of photos I took today from my mini-adventure. 

1. Rules of the lake.
2. The frozen lake.
3. The lake and you can see a mountain peek far off.
4.Winter sun rays on the lake.
5.Our neighbor's driveway across the road. We'll probably have a long gravel driveway too.
6.The view you'd see if you'd just stepped into our woods from the road.
7.Crunchy frozen maple leaves everywhere.
8. The front woods.
9. So many old stumps with character on the property.
10. A top portion of our property. We'll probably put the driveway on the other side of these trees.
11. Ferns everywhere!
12. My favorite cedar grove towards the middle-back of the property.
13. I would love to have a bench set up here.
14. This path leads to the very back corner of our property where it's more cleared. Good garden site.
15. Can you see our neighbors houses?
16. An old shed used to be here. Possible vegetable garden site as ample light hits this area.
17. A maple tree nest at the back of the property.
18. Sun peering through the trees near the middle-back of the property.
19. A giant V-shaped maple.
20. A creek down the road.