Nature's surprises

Most of the rose hedge is trimmed.  Only one more 100 ft section to go.

We use rosa rugosa "sandhill" in our hedge.  They grow well without a lot of effort, spread a bit, but not as aggressively as the multiflora rose that got planted in Ohio earlier.  They bloom from late spring well into the fall, and the bees love them.  They also produce giant rose hips which we use for jelly, syrup, and other fun things.

Part of the rose hedge runs past the two Heartnut trees we planted 7 years ago.  When we bought this property there were no trees.  So we have been planting some, and allowing areas to revert to native forest (not mowing, and letting what ever happens, happen.)  The catalogue said we should see nuts in about 5 years. 9 years in I decided that they were just going to be nice ornamental but not much more.  While cleaning up the roses and the ground under the heartnuts, I found a handful of nuts.  Guess I wasn't paying attention.  Not a grand harvest, but a start.  Smiles all around.

Another smile moment happened while hauling rose trimmings to the goats.  The path runs along a perennial bed where we had added a couple of rhubarb plants last year.   The first of the plants promptly died, and the second struggled the whole summer.  I'd written both of them off, but as I walked past I noticed this where we had planted the first rhubarb.

Yep, that's the dead rhubarb sending up a new sprout.  Nature is quite amazing.