Discovering our yard

As we're spending nearly all of our time at home now due to COVID-19, we're taking the time to explore our yard and learn about the plants we now have. It's been a really great yard to have during quarantine with so many birds and plants to keep us - or me at least - entertained. We're treating this year as a maintenance year while we figure it out. As the new neighbor says, if we don't like anything we can always take it out (though, probably next year). Plant giveaways and trades are popular in the neighborhood email listserv, which seems even more active than Nextdoor here. 

That neighbor - and Google Lens - has been super helpful as she helped the previous owner plant much of the garden here (and apparently did the same for other neighbors) so she was able to help us identify a lot of the plants. The previous owner also kindly responded to our email when we were certain one plant was dead and couldn't figure out why Google Lens told me we had a bunch of baby raspberry plants in our grassy area. 

I had a small vegetable garden, shared with a friend who was a big help the first year, at our last place but as a short term house it was largely devoid of plants beyond a couple bushes. And, prior to that, I had flower gardens on the farm for years as a 4-H project which led to a fondness for snapdragons. Now that we have a longer term place I figured we'd do more landscaping and some flowers, so it's great to start with a nice baseline.

We're still figuring out what we have as it starts blooming, but here's what we've got so far:

Violets, I believe. Ground cover under a birch tree. I've found baby bunnies hiding out in it. The rest of our ground cover is heavily creeping charlie, with some clover and grasses. Bees seem to love the creeping charlie, though in our previous yard we always tried to get rid of it. 

Cushion spurge (left) sounds weird but that's what Google Lens and a new St Paul plant Facebook group I joined called this yellow plant. In the front of the house next to what I'm told are hydrangeas that are just starting to green up (behind and to the right). Lots of Jack in the Pulpit (right) all over the front, and some in the back too.

Trillium came over from our neighbor's yard and she laments that ours are bigger (though hers have more flowers). The first thing to bloom in our yard. Well, second after tulips that didn't last very long. 

Bleeding hearts! My grandma had these and I've always liked them. I had no idea they came in white and was happy to also discover a pink one, though it's pretty hidden (tucked between the fence, the back patio, the gate and the house) so I may look at relocating it. 

Lilacs! These make me so happy. There are lilacs on the farm and lilac season has always been a favorite I used to - well, still do - stop on runs to smell them any chance I got. These are right next to our back porch so I can smell them just by opening the back door sometimes. 

Peonies (left), though not the kind I'm used to. There are several more around the yard that have yet to bloom. And, apparently yellow irises (right) are a thing. I only knew them in purple before. 

Hard to tell among the hostas, but there's a rose bush starting to green up here. The neighbor tells me it's super old, from before the previous owner. 

Edible things. Raspberries (left) and chives (right). The raspberries looked like just a bunch of tall canes when we bought it and I had no idea what that could possibly be, but they're really taking off. We found a bunch of what we thought were weeds in the yard earlier this year, turns out they were baby raspberry plants. The previous owners mentioned these raspberries have just one harvest a year and are pretty tasty. Might have to thin them out. 

Besides the above, there are also lots of hostas, many peonies yet to bloom, some grasses and plenty more we just haven't figured out yet. I also just planted some herbs in a larger planter and may put some veggies in another.