My biggest struggle with the orchard right now is that it looks so drab. I know it won’t be that way forever, but I’m crossing my fingers and toes hoping to get lots of blooms next year. My family and I recently took a trip to St. Louis, MO. While there, we visited Forest Park’s Nature Playscape and I left feeling totally inspired. The whole idea behind nature playscapes is to invite children to interact with nature in a playful and respectful way, which is fantastic. I wish we had something similar in Fort Wayne. But since we don’t, I’m going to do what I can to replicate some of the elements I saw there. And of course, one of the best features of the park was their native plants! So if you’re ever in the area, make sure you pop in for a play session.
Turning Inspiration into Action
Because of all the fun we had at the nature playscape we decided to build our own. Luckily, we got all of the logs we needed for free so Charley and I picked the biggest and coolest looking one we could find for design inspiration! With a little bit of muscle and a few trips in the Jeep we were able build an “obstacle course” for the girls and our visitors.
The Arrival of Fall Plants
Photo 1: Young New Jersey Tea Plants
Photo 2: Martha at Riverview scored me a tall lanky American Plum tree! My favorite purchase of the season.
Photo 3: My shipment of several bare-root shrubs from Prairie Moon Native Nursery.
The roots of all the bare root plants will continue to grow until the ground freezes so its important to continue to water them until then.
Preparing for Spring
In preparation for Spring, I have planted some seeds that need to be cold stratified. That means they need a specific number of cold and wet days (most of these call for 60) in order to germinate. I attempted to do this last year and nearly nothing sprouted. I think I was too eager to get them into the ground. So this year I’ve waited an extra month. I seeded some native plant pots with smooth blue aster, mistflower, butterfly weed, button blazing star, and fragrant false indigo.
This was my first time using the Just Naturals dirt brand but I am really happy with it. Mixing these two gave me a nice and chunky well-draining mix. I had my pots filled for a couple of months and nearly zero weed seeds sprouted.
I also planted tons more milkweed seeds, wild strawberry seeds and liatris spicata seeds directly in the soil at the Orchard.
River Haven
I check the ACCDC property list every once in a while and I noticed someone purchased all of the River Haven lots I went to look at this past year. It will be interesting to see who it was and what their plans are for the land. Fingers crossed they don’t have to deal with much opposition from the locals.