Arlene's Garden Tour 2012 Day three...the Trees.

Most of the tree shown and mentioned below I planted myself in the late 1990's.  I really love trees and one of my favorite places is Finch Arboretum in Spokane.  I enjoyed walking around there with keegan and my dog Heidi, when I first came to Washington State in 1977.

Here I am with Keegan at Finch Arboretum in 1977.  The tree we're sitting in is a White Willow.


We have lots of these willows growing along our part of Crab Creek.  Once we stopped the cows from grazing along there the willows really grew big and now look lovely.  They'd make a nice shady places for the cattle if they ever go there again.  Many of my favorite tree in the park I have planted in my garden.  I've tried to create a mini arboretum in fact.

This spring I cut a little path through these lilacs and chokecherry.  I knew I had achieved the results I wanted when Brad stood in there and said it wasn't like being in eastern Washington anymore.  Our area is mostly bunch grass and sage brush desert.  Along the creek there are the white willows and cottonwoods.  Around the springs there is chokecherry, golden current, Serviceberry, squaw currant.  The wild flowers are abundant and lovely in the spring.

Here's the little woodsy path I made.


Here's Teddy sitting under the weeping mulberry.


Teddy is like me, she prefers the shade.  Here she is on my rock throne/with foot stool....Flintstones furniture for the garden.  On the left is a viburnum and the right you can see part of the weeping elm.


This weeping willow got off to a rough start, but it's finally a nice looking tree.





These jolly flowers show up every year.


Here are my three favorite trees.  Left to right, English oak, Blue Spruce and Birch.  I have another nice English oak and about 8 more Blue Spruces in other places in the garden.


We have automatic sprinklers to keep it all watered.  On the right is an American Fringe tree.  It is so slow at leafing out in the Spring that Brad always asks me if it's dead.  It has lovely delicate blooms.


Here's a European weeping Beech.  I love the one they have in Finch Arboretum and looked all over for one for my own garden.  I bought this one in Redmond Washington about 12 years ago.  It grows very slowly but one day it will be magnificent.


When we were at the nursery in Redmond, I found a Crimean Linden and it's doing really well on the far side of the garden.

The chickens enjoy all the shade and they scare off all the snakes.  We used to have lot of tent caterpillars till we got the chickens.


My next blog will be the wrap up of the garden tour...then I'll actually take some pictures of the mustangs.. :)