Mother Nature was not kind this past week in my Woodland Garden. We received over 7 inches of rain during the storms of last week with 5 1/2 of those coming within a short 3 hour window on Friday afternoon.  It was a time when I said I was sure glad we lived 130 feet above the Cannon River.

The land to the east of us is slightly uphill meaning that with this large amount of water, it all runs through our yard on its way to the

river below.  One of our flower beds was washed out.  I lost about a third of the flowers which I assume are floating down the Cannon somewhere and the others I had to replant.  There was a lot of mulch from our landscape beds that washed into the driveway, down into the ravine and out in the yard.  We have a few areas left to rake.

We will have to apply another few yards of mulch, and about a yard of soil to the one annual bed and sit back and just sigh.  It is still a beautiful place to live – in the woods with the peace, quiet and all of the wildlife.

The Rudbeckia (Black Eyed Susan) is blooming prolifically and is just awesome.  You can see from the picture that this is now almost in full shade.  My Cole’s Prostrate Weeping Hemlock which is now almost 12 years old in this spot sits to the right of the Rudbeckia.  This slow growing shade evergreen just creeps out over the boulders in the wall.  There is really no maintenance to it other than to take the leaf blower in the fall and blow the leaves away.  The shrub on the bottom is one of our Golden Yews which is has a little more dull cast of yellow later now in the season.

Yesterday, after the rain from the night before, I marveled at the droplets of rain that cling to the hosta flowers and the dew that clings to the spider webs.  Stop and look around your garden at all of the unplanned pleasures.  I guess Mother Nature wasn’t so bad after all!