Gardens at Dreams of Yesteryear

It's been a long time since I've entered a blog. Shamefully, I'll admit it was Christmas. Now here it is June and Christmas is but a memory and birds,gardening, and B&B guests are getting my attention Stevens Point has had it's share of rain already this month so birds are chirping happily and the gardens are lush. And the best part has been sharing these treasures with bed and breakfast guests.

As guests comment on the gardens, I like to describe to them what the property was like when we purchased our historic home in 1987. The huge yard was quite overgrown with trees, shrubs, vines, and Lily of the Valley. Cedar hedges that were nearly as wide as they were tall topped the the stone rip rap on two sides of the lot. A bittersweet vine near the west porch crawled over the roof and looked like it would be the plant that ate the house. Grape vines had tangled their way relentlessly through the Lilacs (not a bad thing if you like to make grapevine wreaths). Pachysandra had managed to make its way up to the top of the mama and papa pines. It was exciting to sort through nature's green to discover see what kinds of plantings may have been placed here by early owners of our house.

Over the years we've pruned and trimmed our way to returning the yard into the beautiful Victorian landscape we enjoy today. As guests stroll the formal and informal gardens of Dreams of Yesteryear, they enjoy gazing at mature antique plantings that have been lovingly nurtured. Honeysuckle, bittersweet, lilacs, roses, cotoneaster, bridal wreath to name a few are the plantings we feel we've given another life. Guests also notice the other plantings that we've added over the years. No gardener can resist the many varieties of hostas or the dragon's blood, lavender, bugle weed, sedums, wormwood, iris, Jacob's ladder, wild ginger, anenome, lamb's ears, provoskia, eunemome, and lillies we couldn't resist adding to our gardens.